Small Medium Enterprises (SME) Banking - Thematic Intelligence

Small Medium Enterprises (SME) Banking - Thematic Intelligence

Summary

The need of SMEs are complex, variable, and evolving, which means there are many different types of products, services, and providers depending on the size, life stage, or business area of the SME. One reflection of that is the diversity of players evident in SME banking, with no one player able to manage or control the entire relationship. These include incumbent banks with traditional products; new specialist SME lenders and/or banks; various accounting software providers that seek to disintermediate banks by migrating upstream; payment platforms broadening their solutions and locking in clients with financial and reporting products; the many ecommerce players enabling online sales and financial products; and big tech and social media platforms.

Many new digital banks capitalized on the COVID-19 pandemic to dramatically increase small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) lending and account penetration. For example, in the UK, Starling increased lending from GBP23 million ($28 million) in 2019 to GBP1.6 billion ($2 billion) in June 2021. New entrants such as Holvi, Tide, and Starling-which map digital resources to existential challenges around growing revenue, controlling costs, and working capital-are managing to capture the hearts and minds of this segment. In response, incumbent banks are working hard to evolve and broaden their SME propositions.

Scope

• Most small business owners-defined as those who stated they were self-employed or started their own business in the last two years-use their personal account as their primary business account (72% globally).
• Incumbent banks dominate the market share for SME accounts, as they do for personal accounts, at 75% globally. Yet digital banks already have a 20% market share.
• GlobalData’s survey data suggests growing revenue, controlling costs, and access to capital are the three most important business challenges reported by SME owners. Those new entrants that map resource to these challenges most effectively are driving the most engagement.

• Understand key technology, macroeconomic, and regulatory trends impacting SME banking.
• Identity priority application areas for SMEs in the banking space, as well as the vendors and banks delivering these experiences to end users.
• Access case study insight on the leading players within the SME banking theme.