About Pinnacle
Pinnacle Financial Partners and Apiture have been partners since 2006, undergoing numerous changes as the commercial-focused bank has grown to provide relationship-oriented banking services to large business customers.
Joe Watkins, Director of Market Performance, has been with Pinnacle for over four years, helping to deliver “distinctive service, effective advice, and extraordinary convenience” across a full line of financial services including investments, mortgage, trust, insurance, and financial planning. As a $33 billion asset bank, Pinnacle has identified a business banking strategy that enables its clients to tailor their experiences with digital solutions.
Bridging the gap with business banking
Seeking to differentiate between the needs of three types of business customers, Pinnacle understands the technical and organizational challenges that impact each type when it comes to their digital banking platform.
- Small businesses (less than $50 million in sales) require more payment options than consumers, but transactionally utilize many similar services as consumers when overseeing their finances.
- Commercial/middle market ($50 million – $1 billion) adds depth in collections and payments needs with upgraded technology savvy, requiring automation and process Improvement.
- Large corporate clients (greater than $1 billion) use treasury management platforms built with robust technology and databases to support substantial data and easy access of that data to benefit the speed at which a practitioner can retrieve it.
“Fundamentally, all businesses deal with these [banking] functions regardless of size and complexity. However, the depth of the underlying activities and need for professional advisory services around these functions can be very different among businesses,” Joe said. There are fundamental challenges between delivering a tailored business solution with a digital banking platform that is traditionally optimized for the consumer’s needs, as many platforms are. Oftentimes, separate treasury management banking platforms are built specifically for large corporation banking needs. Apiture worked with Pinnacle to understand the differentiated needs and provide services on the Apiture Digital Banking Platform.
Technology intersects relationships
In terms of digital banking, business needs vary across not only the size of the business but also what type of business it is, Joe explained. “There is a dependency on the desktop or mobile channels associated with business continuity and remote access. A lot of times [the mobile channel is] being used to approve payments.”
Pinnacle has found that business clients are looking to automate and for ways to make their processes more efficient. “So, when we break down how their money and data moves and what time and how, that’s very valuable to clients,” Joe said.
To continue to address market needs, Apiture developed several enhancements to the business banking functionality available on the Apiture Digital Banking Platform. Focusing on critical end-user actions, Pinnacle users are experiencing the most intuitive and expansive business banking tools as they manage their transactions. Apiture’s Business Banking solution includes full-featured payments and reporting capabilities with ACH, Wires, Internal and External Transfers, small business bill pay, State and Federal Tax Payments, Simplified & Advanced Balance Reporting as well as a robust Positive Pay fraud mitigation solution, comprehensive User Administration, and more. Apiture delivered business banking technologies to enable Pinnacle to carry out its relationship and advisory interaction strategy. “Advisory interaction means that we achieve a solution-based selling interaction with clients. It’s not just about payments, it’s about information as well.”
For Pinnacle, banking is about relationships, and their digital banking platform enables them to carry out relationship-driven business banking. “That type of discovery in client experience makes us a huge proponent of paper to electronic champion in transformation,” Joe said.