By helping businesses better manage their corporate cards, HSBC is targeting a key demographic that banks are currently underserving. Partnering with Extend allows it to majorly upgrade its SMB offering with less effort than through internal development.

HSBC just announced a partnership with fintech Extend that will give its US business clients access to virtual cards with payments tools like budgeting, spending limits, and automatic reconciliations that make it easier for them to control spending.  

HSBC’s new capabilities reflect the financial industry’s recent emphasis on competing with fintechs (and each other) by rolling out new tools for SMB clients.  

And Extend says that banks like HSBC choose to partner with it because it allows them to roll out in-demand features, fast: Our “platform is already integrated with major card networks and processors, so our bank partners can quickly innovate and deliver market-ready modern payment experiences to their business customers,” the firm’s cofounder and COO, Guillaume Bouvard, told Insights Distilled.  

Beyond HSBC, American Express, Silicon Valley Bank, BMO, Bank of the West, and Regions all partner with Extend as well. In the last several months, other business-focused bank launches include Wells Fargo unveiling a new digital banking platform, US Bank adding cash flow prediction tools, and Barclays announcing cash advances.