As small businesses report feeling underserved by their banks amid this difficult economic climate, financial firms have an opportunity to buck the status quo by providing personalized analytics that help customers improve their operations and profitability. 

Standard Chartered is partnering with fintech platform upSWOT to offer forecasting, analytics, and advice to its small business customers. The partnership gives SMBs a single, comprehensive dashboard to track and analyze their cash flow, inventory, and return on investment, which can help drive their decision making around marketing tactics, financing requirements (like credit lines), and more.   

It’s a “win-win” situation for both the bank and its SMB clients: The partnership will allow SC to have a “deeper understanding of their business users in order to provide customized up-sell and cross-sell opportunities, speed up the loan underwriting process, cut renewal costs, and most importantly, build trusting relationships with their SMBs,” upSWOT’s head of digital acquisition, Nana Mardoyan, told Insights Distilled. SMBs, meanwhile, “will have access to advanced financial technologies that they need in order to compete in the increasingly complex global marketplace.”  

SC is launching a pilot initiative in Singapore, with plans to expand next year. It also isn’t the only bank that’s been beefing up its small business offerings recently: For example, US Bank has worked with an unnamed fintech to help SMBs predict their future cash flow, while Barclays is partnering with UK fintech Liberis to make cash advances faster and easier.