5 Warning Signs It’s Time to Switch Banks

You’ve started up your business, and you’ve done everything right. Your product or service is better than you imagined. You’re getting new customers every day. You’ve recruited the experts you need, like an attorney, an accountant, and a mentor. You likely have a business bank as well, and everything seems fine.

But have you really selected the right bank to help take your business to the next level?

As the financial demands of your business develop, it’s important to partner with a bank that can meet your growing, rapidly changing needs. But sometimes, it can be difficult to determine if your needs aren’t being met until it’s too late.

To avoid unnecessary frustrations and costly setbacks, we’ve identified five warning signs that it might be time for you to switch business banks.

Warning Sign #1:

Your bank might not have the capabilities to grow or scale with you.

As your business begins to require larger transaction capabilities, you need a bank whose services can support your growth rather than hinder it. Many startups begin their banking relationship with the bank where they keep their personal accounts but very quickly run into roadblocks when they require a solution their bank simply does not have.

A strong business banking partner should provide you with clarity and better control of your operating expenses, cash flow, and accounts payable through a wide range of tools or services, such as business checking accounts, business credit cards, or even small business loans or lines of credit. As your business adds online sales capabilities to brick-and-mortar sales, it’s crucial to find a bank that can provide merchant services that enable you to accept payments from anywhere, even globally, through end-to-end processing solutions.

PNC Bank offers all these solutions, including integrated Treasury Management solutions, which can help you boost revenue, reduce costs, and improve financial insights throughout each phase of growth. And with a robust offering of digital and mobile banking solutions, you can manage your cash flow whenever and wherever you might need to, without setting foot in your local branch.

Warning Sign #2:

You need better fraud protection.

In a recent survey conducted by the Association for Financial Professionals¹, 78 percent of professionals reported that their businesses were targets of payment fraud, and 70 percent of businesses subjected to payment fraud were victims of check fraud. With these numbers and the security of your business and customers in mind, it’s important to partner with a bank who meets certain compliance standards.

For example, your bank should be compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), which is a set of security standards that are designed to reduce the risk of theft and fraud of customers’ sensitive card data. To avoid putting your business and your customers at risk, you should ask your current bank about their fraud protection programs.

PNC Bank offers four fraud mitigation tools for small businesses that work in tandem to help protect your accounts from unauthorized activities, whether they are initiated electronically or via paper check:

• PINACLE® Express, which enables you to monitor and manage your banking activity wherever you have internet access.
• Positive Pay Solutions, which allows you to display your check presentment information online to identify and respond to suspicious activity.
• ACH Debit Authorization Solutions, which prohibits suspicious ACH debits from posting to your account or allows you to establish rules to identify which ACH debits should be allowed to post.
• Universal Payment Identification Code (UPIC), which masks your checking account number so that you can accept ACH credits without exposing sensitive information.

Warning Sign #3:

You haven’t been provided with the tools to grow your financial knowledge.

Owning a business goes beyond providing a great customer experience or product. You also must have a working knowledge of the backend processes that will help your business remain successful, and a solid understanding of your finances is an integral part of that knowledge.

While you might have some foundational understanding of how to manage your finances, there might be some areas of financial planning and forecasting that might be out of your range of capabilities–and here’s where your financial institution can step in.

Your bank should be able to provide you with a steady stream of free, informative, thought leadership-driven resources that can help you manage your business. Additionally, a seasoned business banker, who has worked with other small businesses through similar situations, can be an excellent source of experiential insight and guidance. If you feel like you aren’t being provided with available resources to grow your own knowledge, it might be time to consider alternative options which can provide you with deeper small business insights.

Warning Sign #4:

Your bank isn’t deeply invested in the community.

Your small business—through its goods, services, or even charity—enriches your community. It’s important that your bank is similarly engrained in that community, too. Partnering with a bank that has the community’s best interest in mind means that they will have your business’s best interest in mind. Plus, those relationships can open opportunities for other programs or resources that can benefit both you and the community your business serves.

PNC Bank has several community-driven programs, including an $88 billion Community Benefits Plan, which focuses on supporting local communities, advancing economic empowerment, and addressing systemic racism. This initiative aims to provide $47 billion in home lending loans or mortgages, $26.5 billion in small business loans, and $14.5 billion in community development financing. PNC also provides for their employees to be part of internal programs, such as the Minority Business Development Group or Women’s Business Advocates, which place a specific focus on empowering minority- or female-/non-binary-owned small businesses that are making a difference in their communities simply by being in business.

Warning Sign #5:

You don’t have a productive relationship with your business banker.

A business banker can be an extremely valuable resource for your small business, but if you don’t have a productive, communicative relationship with your banker, you might be losing out on important advice or resources.

If you feel like you’re treated as just another account number rather than a valued customer or like you’re truly being heard in your conversations with your banker, it might be time to seek out a financial institution that provides dedicated relationship managers.

At PNC Bank, relationship managers want to know how your business operates, what your opportunities and goals are, what drives you, who your customers are, as well as employees, and more. These relationship managers will work with you to customize a banking experience tailored to make the most of your cash flow; help you achieve your business goals; and provide the products, technologies, and insights that will simplify all your business banking needs.