Daily Tearsheet: The banking needs of SMBs, a day in the life of GM of Credit Services at Credit Sesame, and CMO’s role in banking
- We speak to the co-founder of SMB lender Kabbage about SMBs' needs regarding capital.
- Also, we look at the evolving role of marketing and marketing leaders within banks.
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The unique banking needs of SMBs: 5 questions with Kabbage co-founder Kathryn Petralia
The small business sector has historically been a tricky one to underwrite. It’s more complex than consumer lines, but doesn’t fall into the conventional commercial sector either.
The banking wants and needs of SMBs are different and unique – it’s all about accessing financial services tailored to their business without having to pay a huge premium for it. This demand is increasingly being met by fintechs and digital lenders that can leverage new underwriting techniques to serve more small businesses across many different industries -- however, there are challenges as well.
Kabbage's co-founder Kathryn Petralia gave us a fresh overview of the SMB banking and lending space – what needs are specific to the SMB sector and what banks and fintechs are trying to do to meet the demand.
Read more
'We try to think two steps ahead': A day in the life of Shazia Virji, GM, Credit Services at Credit Sesame
Shazia Virji has been in fintech for over a decade now. She developed an interest in financial services at an unusually young age. Her parents immigrated to the US from Tanzania, East Africa, in the 1980s. After moving into a new country, a lot of their early struggles stemmed from limited awareness and knowledge of the financial system.
Shazia’s fintech experience over the years enabled her to join Credit Sesame’s business development team. At that time, the company was only five years old, with around 30 to 40 employees. This allowed her to witness the evolution of the company and to grow alongside it. After seven years, last April, she was promoted to GM of credit services.
Here’s what it’s like to spend a day in Shazia’s life.
Data snack: Defining the role of the Bank CMO
Incumbents are striving to show they, too, can offer customers personalized services. Their attention toward marketing, therefore, continues to increase. And that’s being reflected through the increased expectations banks have of their chief marketing officers.
According to recent data from Capgemini's World Retail Banking Report 2022, CMOs are seeing a whole lot of responsibilities as of late. Core marketing remains very much a significant portion of the chief marketing officer’s job description. Over 70% have direct responsibility for brand management and marketing strategy and planning, for example -- the CMO’s role in the industry is becoming increasingly complicated.
Just look at the charts
1. The future of fintech: embedded everything
Source: Nicolas Pinto
2. Stablecoins' expansion still on the cards?
Source: Bianca Lopes
Today's stories
Deutsche Bank is cleaning up its supply chain
Deutsche Bank demands sustainability ratings from suppliers, mandating that suppliers doing business with the bank must undertake a vendor sustainability rating from EcoVadis or another eligible rating agency (Finextra)
Google wallet re-launch -- what's new?
The new Google wallet provides an entirely new API with integrated security to store both non-secure and secure tickets, passes, IDs, Tokens, and Access cards -- stored through the new Identity Credential Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) required by Android 13 (Tom Noyes)
Unit secures $100 million round at $1.2 billion valuation
Unit, a banking-as-a-service startup, has closed on a $100 million Series C round of funding led by Insight Partners, existing backers Accel, Better Tomorrow Ventures, and Flourish Ventures, which values the company at $1.2 billion (TechCrunch)
Quontic Bank is the latest entry in the metaverse
US digital bank Quontic has opened an outpost in the metaverse to connect with customers, offer education, and "eventually - as the virtual world evolves - offer banking services" (Finextra)
Keep Financial enticing employees by offering forgivable loans
Founded by the same founders of Kabbage, Rob and Kathryn are back at it. Keep is building a platform to help employers provide retention bonuses in the form of forgivable loans — based on them staying at the company for an agreed length of time (TechCrunch)
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