Partnering with fast-moving startups helps incumbents upgrade their customer offerings more quickly, as they compete against fintechs and each other.

Big financial firms continued to embrace startups this year to help them hook their customers with useful features or revamped processes.  

For example, HSBC, TD Bank, Barclays, and Standard Chartered are all relying on partnerships to offer unique or improved tools to their business clients: 

• HSBC has slashed the time it takes to approve collateral-based business loans from one to two months to under 48 hours using a new platform powered by Trade Ledger  
• TD Bank is working with DailyPay to let business clients pay out their workers almost as soon as they finish a shift 
• Barclays, which is offering faster cash advances by working with Liberis  
• Standard Chartered, which is providing SMB customers with personalized analytics through a relationship with upSWOT, in a “win-win” situation for both the bank and its clients, an exec told Insights Distilled. 

Consumers are reaping the benefits too:  

• Capital One is partnering with Hopper to build out its travel services for credit card holders  
• UBS is working with Regula to allow people to sign up for new accounts in minutes online, without a video interview 
• NatWest just launched partnerships with three fintechs – Token, Yapily, and Tink (a former Insight Partners’ portfolio company that sold to Visa) – to provide more flexible payments for its customers.