The “vs.” headlines have been blaring for years. True, there are the titans, Amazon, Intuit, Square, and Stripe, grabbing share of card, merchant acquiring, and deposits. But also true, there are fintechs that recognize that the equation: 1 bank + 1 fintech > 2. Banks and fintechs have complimentary attributes that when combined can lead to exponential growth. Banks bring a relatively warm customer base, extensive key resources (regulatory/compliance, risk management, and legal), a balance sheet, and a scaled infrastructure that can readily handle growth in transaction flows and deposit balances. Fintechs bring a culture based on innovation (e.g., test fast/learn fast), talent that combines tech savviness, product management, and client skills, and a modern tech stack that is cloud-native and API-first.

When the “vs.” becomes a “+”, banks have the opportunity to become the challenger, the disrupter, in small business banking. Becoming a challenger requires, first, a mind shift from delivering “nouns” (i.e., products) to enabling “verbs” (i.e., actions on the part of their customers and small business bankers). The rallying cry needs to be “make our small business customers run better and grow.”

What does enabling “verbs” look like? The formula is outlined below.