Digital Account Opening in Small Business Banking

As small business owners become accustomed to more personalized and contextual digital experiences — whether from their consumer bank or from outside the financial industry — demand for more streamlined digital and omnichannel capabilities will become the norm. In small business digital account opening, most banks are behind. In fact, only six of the top 30 banks serving business customers offer some form of digital checking account application today, and already those banks hold 30% of U.S. small business deposits. Account opening is a tremendous opportunity for banks to demonstrate their omnichannel competence, save on costly administrative and transactional branch visits, cross-sell additional accounts and products, and onboard new customers into digital services that build engagement and lead to  long-term profitability.

Key questions discussed in this report:

• Which banks offer various aspects of digital account opening today and to what effect?
• How many accounts and products are opened every year and through what channels?
• Through which channels would small business owners prefer to complete each step of the account opening process?
• What are the best practices in each step of the process, including research, application start, document submission, ID verification, KYC, customer service, cross-sell, and onboarding?
• What is the role of mobile today and in the future of account opening?
• Where should banks start in developing their digital account opening capabilities for small business?

Companies Mentioned: Bank of America, BB&T, Capital One, Frost Bank, Huntington Bank, SunTrust, TD Bank, Wells Fargo, Zions Bank

The small business data in this report is based on information collected in a random-sample panel of 1,000 small and micro businesses in a March 2017 online survey. Javelin defines microbusinesses as those with annual revenue between $100,000 and $1 million and small businesses as those with revenue between $1 million and $10 million.

Market share data was provided by Greenwich Associates Market Opportunity Analytics (MOA) program. MOA provides banks with dollar-based strategy analysis of market size, market share, wallet share, risk identification and attractive growth opportunities for customizable segments covering U.S. companies ranging from $1M to $2B in annual sales.