Banks Team Up With FinTechs To Boost The Business Experience

More open banking initiatives are emerging with a focus on business customers, even in markets in which open banking regulations are nonexistent. This week’s roundup looks at how the framework aims to wield industry collaboration to improve small business lending, treasury management, cross-border payments and more.

Plaid Targets Small Business Lending

Plaid is wielding its technology that unlocks bank data to strengthen its position in the small business lending segment. The company recently announced a collaboration with Codat to streamline the small business loan underwriting process for financial institutions by looping directly into small business financial data. For small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), this means a more streamlined and accelerated application process, while for lenders, it yields expanded access to new sources of data that can mitigate risk and fight fraud, the companies said.

BNP Paribas Debuts Open Banking-Powered Instant Payments

BNP Paribas is collaborating with open banking FinTech Token to launch Instanea, its instant payments offering for merchant clients across Europe. The bank revealed its partnership and the debut of its online payments service last week, using SEPA Instant and PSD2 application programming interface (API) infrastructure to facilitate real-time account-to-account (A2A) payments. Merchants can integrate the solution into their shopping carts and payment gateways with Instanea able to authenticate payers immediately to combat chargeback fraud. The solution also aims to support real-time cash flow management for the merchants themselves, the bank noted, while strengthening the user experience.

Platea Banking Launches To Help Financial Institutions Embrace Open Banking

Platea Banking, a digital banking platform recently launched by NTT DATA, is targeting financial institutions’ (FIs’) ability to embrace open banking by lowering barriers to exploring new applications of the framework and launching new services and business models. In the press release, NTT DATA said the solution is an open banking platform that helps banks build their own digital platforms with preexisting modules, each with features like customer on-boarding, lending, card issuing and processing, payments and more. The aim is to allow financial institutions to develop new services without being “locked into a specific vendor,” and to support their efforts to compete with more agile FinTechs, the press release said.

First Horizon Bank Taps nCino For Treasury Tech

First Horizon Bank is modernizing its corporate lending and treasury management operations through a new partnership with nCino, the firms recently announced. The cloud banking FinTech will integrate nCino Bank Operating System across First Horizon Bank, with the FI using nCino’s Commercial and Small Business Lending and Treasury Management Sales and Onboarding Solutions, to modernize its offerings for corporate customers. The bank, which operates across the Southeastern U.S., said it’s critical for businesses to have access to best-in-class solutions, whether via a physical branch, at the office, at home or elsewhere.

CFBank Links With Orion First On Equipment Finance

Local bank CFBank, based in Ohio, is looking outward for help bolstering its equipment financing operations. The bank recently announced in a press release that it has chosen Orion First Financial to adopt its commercial loan and lease portfolio servicing technology to strengthen its equipment financing and leasing operations. CFBank only recently expanded into equipment financing and will rely on the technology firm to manage contract booking, payment processing, accounting, delinquencies, reporting and data.

Commerzbank Boosts SMB Finance With creditshelf

Germany’s Commerzbank is working with creditshelf to expand access to finance for its small and medium-sized clients. In a press release, the bank said it will expand its existing partnership with the FinTech to connect SMBs to creditshelf technology, which digitizes the business loan application process and connects small firms to a range of financing products, including project financing, working capital loans and more.