CSI says community banks can deepen business ties with commercial tech

CSI’s Michel Jacobs says community banks can keep more small-business relationships by adding digital banking, payments and treasury tools that meet everyday operating needs. The push comes as new research shows many SMBs would consolidate accounts at a community bank that can cover all of their financial workflows.

Why it matters: - Community banks risk losing business customers when they can only offer basic deposits and loans. - CSI argues that adding connected commercial capabilities can help banks keep operating deposits, deepen relationships and reduce customer churn to fintechs and larger lenders. - For small and medium-sized businesses, the payoff is simpler cash management, faster payments and fewer handoffs across multiple financial providers.

What happened: - In a sponsored article published by Business Reporter, Michel Jacobs, chief strategy officer at CSI, outlined how community banks can strengthen business relationships with more advanced commercial tools. - Datos Insights research cited in the piece found that 73% of small and medium-sized businesses would consolidate their banking with their community bank if the bank could meet all of their needs. - The same research found that 71% of SMBs already work directly with a fintech for at least one financial process.

The details: - Community banks often stop at deposit accounts and loans, while businesses increasingly want more flexible digital banking and payment capabilities. - A real-time ledger can create a single source of truth for cash and liquidity positions. - Virtual account management lets businesses organize funds by property, client or purpose without opening multiple physical accounts. - Virtual accounts can mirror a business’s accounting structure and show incoming payments immediately. - Those functions can simplify payment allocation, reconciliation and reporting. - The capabilities are especially relevant for homeowners associations, landlords, property managers, attorney and client trusts, title companies and other businesses with cash management needs. - An HOA can use virtual accounts to allocate payments to individual residences and track who has paid. - Additional tools include faster cross-border transfers, corporate cards, debit cards and prepaid cards tailored to specific uses. - Digital banking tools that connect with business applications can also provide personalized cash-flow insights. - CSI announced CSI Commercial Suite in September to support these needs. - The suite combines deposit, payment, card and treasury capabilities for specialized business markets. - CSI said the suite is pre-integrated with its core and digital banking platforms.

Between the lines: - The strategy builds on community banks’ local knowledge and credit judgment, then extends that advantage into daily business operations. - For community banks, the opportunity is not just product expansion. It is relationship defense. - If banks can support day-to-day workflows, they may be better positioned to win lower-cost operating deposits and generate more fee income. - The competitive pressure is clear: fintechs, super-regional banks and larger institutions are already filling the gaps.

What's next: - CSI is steering banks toward broader commercial bundles that cover treasury, payments and card services alongside lending. - The company is positioning CSI Commercial Suite as a way for community banks to serve specialized business markets without building the stack from scratch. - Businesses that want more consolidated banking relationships will likely continue pushing banks to deliver more complete digital workflows.

The bottom line: - Community banks that can meet a business customer’s daily operating needs have a better shot at keeping the full relationship, not just the loan.