SMBs are keen to invest in AI and boost their digital payment adoption. Concurrently, they expect their financial service providers to focus on these areas.
Financial firms are investing in SMB digitization tools and boosting embedded payments strategies, while also exploring diverse and unconventional approaches.
Fintechs have been better at offering personalized experiences than banks, but some of the biggest banks in America have played catch up and are now leveraging internal data to offer more personalized experiences.
This falls short of ideal personalization, where an FI uses both internal and external fintech data to fully understand a customer's financial life. While challenging, some infrastructure like API-based data sharing exists.
Fifth Third has partnered with SpringFour on its Financial Empowerment Mobile (eBus), which brings banking products and financial health resources to underserved communities.
The partnership and relaunch of the eBus comes after a year and a half work involving a diverse range of stakeholders across the bank.
The Capital One-Discover deal may be driven by the complementary attributes of their customers, potentially leading to changes in product offerings and services to better serve consumers.
The combined entity could introduce a rewards based debit card as well as relaunch Discover's credit cards for SMBs. Beyond products however it is unlikely that the UX will change dramatically.
Earlier hopes of three rate cuts in the year are dwindling to uncertainty over whether any cuts will materialize at all.
The impact of sustained higher rates has already permeated banks’ NII as borrowing by businesses and consumers declined, coupled with higher funding costs for banks. Conversely, consumers are grappling not only with expensive borrowing costs but also with a significant portion experiencing loan rejections.