To mark Small Business Week 2024, the Financial Technology Association hosted a live webinar, “How Fintech Powers Small Business.” The webinar covered the array of financial tools available to aid small businesses in accessing capital and managing their finances efficiently. Panelists also discussed FTA’s new Small Business Policy Agenda and the importance of having the right policies to spur continued innovation and help small businesses succeed.
Panelists included
Luke Voiles
, CEO of
Pipe
;
Erin Neeley Archuleta
, Head of Policy Partnerships & Community Impact at
Block
;
Grant Hannah
, Head of Public Policy at
Bluevine
; and
Erik Rettig
, Senior Manager of Policy and Regulatory Affairs at
Intuit
. The webinar was moderated by FTA President and CEO
Penny Lee
.
Did you miss the webinar? Watch the video here and read the key highlights below.
Luke Voiles, CEO of Pipe, the modern capital platform, discussed the challenges small businesses face in accessing capital and how his company aims to fill the gap with innovative solutions.
- “It’s the number one pain point for small businesses…It’s just a super challenging problem for the micro-merchants, sometimes small proprietors that have maybe 100,000 in revenue coming in to get access to capital. [Fintech] does an amazing job of serving that micro merchant population with…a full suite of embedded financial services. We want to fill that gap to make sure businesses have access to financial services.”
Erin Archuleta, Head of Policy Partnerships and Community Impact at Block and a small business owner herself, shared her experience using embedded fintech tools like Square and Quickbooks to manage her catering business.
- “Those [embedded fintech] tools really give us a real-time snapshot of how the business is performing…like my dashboard with nightly sales, my ability to anticipate payroll, my ability to see multiple locations at one time and make real-time decisions in the moment that frankly affect my business in the long term.”
- Erin also highlighted how Square loans powered her business through different stages of growth, helping her scale to a larger space, make necessary equipment repairs, or pay staff during the pandemic. “In each instance, we had the flexibility, and fintech had the responsiveness to meet us where we were and to meet our need.”
Erik Rettig from Intuit discussed the company’s efforts to provide timely insights into small business economic trends through initiatives like the QuickBooks Small Business Index.
- “The Intuit QuickBooks Small Business index…is a new monthly measure of small business employment and hiring in the US, Canada, and the UK. We developed this in partnership with a leading economist…Because we’re using anonymous data from Quickbooks payroll, data insight are available seven to nine months earlier than those official statistics that can be kind of stale by the time you receive them.”
- Erik also highlighted how the use of digital tools correlates with business growth. “We’re also seeing in our data that financially and digitally connected small businesses grow faster. So we found a direct correlation between increased use of digital tools and employment, as well as revenue growth.”
Grant Hannah from Bluevine emphasized the role that fintech companies play in expanding access to capital for underserved businesses through data-driven underwriting processes and providing a comprehensive suite of services in one platform.
- “We offer a holistic suite of products that enables our customers to manage their finances from one place, ultimately delivering convenience and saving time. [Bluevine gives] small businesses time back to do marketing, manage employees, hire, and [focus on] the core functions that enable growth…The fact that Bluevine can really bring those efficiencies and conveniences is what attracts customers to our platform.”
- Grant also discussed extending open banking protections to small businesses as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau works to finalize its 1033 rule establishing consumer financial data rights. “[Under 1033], consumers can control how their data is shared and control who accesses it…Small businesses deserve the same level of protection as consumers. They use open banking and fintech tools in the same ways and with the same uptake as consumers. Extending those same level protections to small businesses is really important.”
