The Best Moments of our Business Banking Sessions at Alkami Co:lab

Highlights you won’t want to miss about Alkami’s digital banking solutions

That’s a wrap for Alkami Co:lab 2023! Now let’s recap what the brightest minds in banking and fintech heard in our business banking track where we explored innovative digital banking solutions designed to boost business portfolios with growth solutions.

Positioning Your Financial Institution for Business Banking Success

The Big Four banks currently dominate the small-business banking space, but a recent Aite-Novarica Group survey of more than 1,000 U.S. small businesses found that more than 60% of businesses would bank with a local community financial institution (FI) if it offered comparable products and services to larger institutions. 

In this session, Head of Banking and Payments Insights and Advisory at Aite-Novarica Group, Christine Barry, explored the key areas FIs should focus on and invest in to be more successful and win business banking market share like incorporating analytics for greater personalization, broadening functionality, and selecting the right fintech partners.

Christine helped us set the stage with the foundational aspects of what businesses are looking for in an FI. Let’s build upon that and explore what Alkami has to offer when it comes to business banking solutions.

Business Banking 101

Director, Product Management at Alkami, Jacob Leick, invited three different types of business owners to demo the Alkami Business Banking solution from a small, middle-market, and commercial business perspective. FIs can leverage the insights gained from this session to formulate business banking use cases to thrive in the digital age.

Now that you have seen Alkami’s business banking solution in action and identified use cases for your FI, the next step is growing your business deposit account portfolio digitally. Cue the next session!

Grow Deposit Accounts with Business Banking

The deposit account is the onramp to the financial relationship for most small to midsize businesses (SMBs). With the recent shift in focus to deposits, Director of Retail Banking at Trustmark National Bank, Laura Smith, discussed some of the economic factors that led to this along with some tactics FIs are using in response to these challenges. 

We then transitioned to Alkami’s Vice President & General Manager of Digital Account Opening & Loan Origination Solutions, Har Rai Khalsa, to share Alkami’s approach to business account opening where we have simplified the process to make it easier for applicants to start their own business or scale with additional financial support. 

But what happens once that new business account holder has been successfully onboarded and registered within digital banking? That’s where this next session comes into play!

Experience Better Business Banking Onboarding

Alkami’s Lead Sales Engineer, Peter Andon, demonstrated how Alkami’s digital banking platform can deliver back-office efficiencies for FIs in the areas of:

• User support
• Packages
• Billing
• Reports

We also shared Alkami’s business demo environment, a powerful tool for bankers or treasury sales reps to demonstrate the FI’s capabilities to clients or prospects on a live application.

Once you’ve developed a memorable onboarding experience, how can you continue to foster that banking relationship and generate non-interest income? You won’t want to miss the tactic Alkami, Director of Product Management, Mark Leher, shares in the next session.

Best Practices to Stand Up Non-Interest Income

Senior Vice President of Business Banking at Valley Strong Credit Union, Deanna Blaise, shares insights from their 2019 business banking launch where they identified ~10% of consumer accounts were operating businesses and co-mingling funds. We shared how you can use data & marketing solutions to identify business accounts hidden as retail accounts, market business banking to these clients and then drive recurring revenue through automated billing, competitive pricing analysis, and account analysis systems.

Now let’s talk about fraud prevention and security, because we all know the question is not “if fraud will occur,” but “when.” How can FIs better protect business accounts?

Protect Business Accounts with Positive Pay

Fraud continues to be a top concern for FI leaders as 71% of companies in the U.S. experience attempted or actual payment fraud in 2021, according to the 2022 AFP Payment Fraud & Control Survey. Checks and ACH debits were two of the payment methods most impacted by fraud activity and are a driving force behind the need for FIs to modernize the delivery of existing legacy payment systems. In this session, Alkamists Jaime Berg and Todd Glenn shared and demonstrated how Alkami’s Payment Security & Insights solution is helping FIs reduce operational expenses, drive revenue by obtaining buy-in from customers and members, and increase adoption of Positive Pay for Check and ACH transactions. 

Taking it one step further, FIs must build a layered approach to payment fraud and security – one solution or tactic alone isn’t enough to effectively prevent fraud. 

Build a Layered Approach to Payment Fraud & Security

Cybercrime continues to evolve with increased sophistication and improved targeting as fraudsters leverage various techniques and threats. Our panel of experts including Director of Global Advisory at BioCatch – Seth Ruden, Senior Fraud Prevention Consultant at Appgate – Dee Millard, and Alkamists Jaime Berg and Brad Cranford, explain how FIs can limit exposure to digital threats in the areas of account opening, event and transaction monitoring, and compromised account holders. They also shared tips on how FIs can blend security, convenience, and operational efficiency to successfully deploy a layered approach to payment fraud and security. 

At this point, your business account holders have just about all the tools they need within your digital banking platform. However, our clients stay ahead of the game in an evolving digital environment by fostering an innovation mindset. So what’s next for business banking? Keep reading to find out what’s on our roadmap. 

Business Banking Roadmap Briefing

Alkami’s Director of Product Management, Jacob Leick, and Alkami’s Senior Product Manager, Mandy Lopez, have been working hand-in-hand with business bankers and businesses to develop leading edge technology for the Alkami Platform and were excited to share a sneak preview of two new compelling features: business transaction limit management and sub user management 2.0. They explained how everything we develop for our business banking solution ties back to a major theme of saving time for both the FI and the business in the areas of transacting with ease, quick and actionable insights, and personalized experiences.