Tuesday, January 30, 2018 Stamford, CT USA — Owners and executives of small and mid-sized companies are taking their experiences and expectations as online consumers to their bank relationships.
The results of the latest Greenwich Associates Market Pulse study show that digitally savvy executives are increasingly willing to take advice from automated “robo-advisor” platforms, however they are also demanding much faster turnaround times from their banks—with expectations for 24-hour credit increasingly the norm.
“Technology has transformed how businesses operate and interact. The innovations executives’ experience in their consumer-lives are driving rising expectations that their banks will follow suit and create channels and processes that make it easier to do business together,” says Greenwich Associates Managing Director Chris McDonnell. “While these changes create huge opportunities for banks to lower costs, they are also putting serious pressure on banks to up their game. All this is taking place in an environment where technology providers are driving increasingly viable alternatives to working with traditional banks.”
Credit Application: Please Respond Within 24 Hours
In 2014, only 2% of small and mid-sized companies said they expected a response to a credit application within 24 hours. By November 2017, that share has jumped above 20%.
Greenwich Associates expects that trend to continue, and projects that expectations for a 24-hour response on credit applications will soon become commonplace, if not standard. Driving this change is the exposure of business owners and executives to near-instant online service across a range of consumer retail and retail finance businesses, as well as to the performance of non-bank, fintech-based commercial credit providers.
About 20% of Greenwich Associates study participants have applied for credit with a non-bank provider. Of those that have, half say the experience affected their expectations for bank response times. It’s not just companies that have experimented with non-banks that are changing their expectations. “People have been conditioned to expect faster turnaround,” says Greenwich Associates consultant Patrick Mulrenan. “Now it’s up to banks to deliver.”
Ready for Robo
Small business owners and executives at mid-sized companies are increasingly willing to accept business and financial advice from automated “robo-advisor” platforms offered by banks.
Over the past year, the share of respondents indicating a willingness to accept advice on “business solutions” from an automated platform increased significantly—to 30% in November 2017 from 14% in November 2016 among small businesses, and to 27% from just 7% among mid-sized companies. In fact, most small businesses and mid-sized companies now say they would prefer to work with a bank that offers digital self-service with access to a relationship manager for an additional fee.