SME Banking: Connecting the whole customer relationship

Opening a business account in minutes is a considerable improvement on waiting two weeks. Yet that convenience can disappear when the customer needs help with an international payment, applies for financing or asks the bank to consider their personal and business finances together.

The account opening process may be digital. The relationship can still be fragmented.

That gap ran through a recent Qorus SME Banking Community roundtable in Dubai, which brought together banking executives and technology providers from the Middle East, Europe, Africa and South Asia.

The discussion pointed to a practical challenge for SME banking: connecting digital services, customer information and human expertise around the needs of the business owner. Doing that requires decisions about responsibility and incentives alongside investment in technology.

Digital onboarding has changed the economics of SME banking

For banks serving freelancers, sole proprietors and micro-businesses, digitization has opened up possibilities that were difficult to justify under older service models.

Raj Tatavarty, Head of Business Banking Products and Digital at Mashreq, explained how lower acquisition and servicing costs have made retail banking approaches more viable for these customers. A small business no longer needs to carry the cost of a largely manual process designed for a much more complex company.

Ozkan Erener, CEO of VeriPark, shared two examples of what this can mean in practice. A German corporate card provider reduced onboarding from two weeks to 15 minutes. A large Turkish retail bank brought the cost of acquiring and servicing a micro-business customer below $25, while growing its merchant relationships from 20,000 to 800,000.

Those improvements matter. They make it possible to serve more businesses and give owners time back.
But a fast start is only one part of the relationship. As businesses develop, their banking needs become less predictable—and sometimes much harder to resolve through a standard digital journey.

When does a small business need specialist support?

Complexity does not always arrive with a large balance sheet.

A payment held up over supporting documents may require someone who understands the business and can explain the transaction. Foreign exchange exposure, hedging or a company with several owners may call for specialist knowledge.

Tatavarty acknowledged that banks cannot simply extend every part of the retail model to SMEs. They need to recognize when a customer’s circumstances require a different response.

Cash flow is another example. Unlike a salaried individual, a business may face considerable variation in when money comes in and when payments fall due.

Bharat Subramanian, Head of Value Proposition, Portfolio, and Customer Experience for Business Banking at Emirates NBD, highlighted the value of AI-supported cash flow forecasting. Better forecasts can help banks and businesses identify potential liquidity pressures earlier and consider suitable options.

The benefit depends on what happens next. An early warning needs to reach someone who can understand the situation and help the customer act on it.

Why one relationship manager may not solve the problem

A single relationship manager covering both personal and business banking sounds appealing. The customer has one contact, and the bank gets a broader understanding of their needs.

Tatavarty’s experience showed how difficult that arrangement can be to sustain. He described two attempts to introduce such a model. When responsibilities were divided, teams disagreed over whose targets should benefit from customer activity. When the roles were combined, relationship managers tended to concentrate on the area they knew best.

Even the reporting line became a problem. Should the role sit within retail, SME or priority banking?

These are internal questions, but customers feel the consequences.

Daniele Coda, Chief Commercial Officer at Rakbank, described how separate views of an owner’s personal and company finances can lead to inconsistent commercial decisions. One team may have information that would change another team’s assessment, yet the two never connect.

A broader job title cannot fix that on its own. The person managing the relationship needs relevant information, clear authority and performance measures that support cooperation.

Zubair Ahmed, Managing Director at Qorus, observed that the segments banks created to serve customers can become barriers themselves. He pointed to an early initiative at a bank in Qatar that gives one owner responsibility for a customer’s value across segments.

The question is how to make that responsibility work in everyday decisions: who follows up, who can resolve an issue and how teams share credit for the outcome.

What role should AI play in SME banking?

AI offers several useful ways to support a more connected relationship. It can help identify changes in transaction patterns, highlight potential cash flow needs and guide relationship managers toward relevant conversations.

Coda described four priorities: anticipating needs, making insights relevant, extending personalized service to more customers and keeping people responsible for judgment and decisions.

That is a useful starting point because it connects AI to specific service improvements. A relationship manager can prepare for a conversation with better information. A business owner can receive support while there is still time to act.

The roundtable also considered whether AI might eventually coordinate a customer’s wider financial relationship. Tatavarty regarded that prospect as some way off, while seeing potential for AI to help banks apply their chosen service strategy more consistently.

Pamela Chan King Yeun, Head of Business Banking at Mauritius Commercial Bank, brought the discussion back to the decision that needs to come first: what does the bank want to achieve for SMEs?

That choice sets the direction for technology investment. A bank needs to know which needs it intends to meet, how customers will access support and where human judgment is essential. AI can then support those commitments in daily operations.

Design the relationship around the business owner

Some challenges require cooperation beyond the bank. Ahmad Abu Eideh, CEO of Jordan Ahli Bank, emphasized the role of banks and governments working together to support SME development.

Within an institution, there is also plenty to address. A useful starting point is to follow a business owner through several real situations: opening an account, managing a cash shortfall, making an overseas payment and seeking advice as the company grows.

Where does information stop moving? When does the owner have to explain the business again? Who takes responsibility when a request crosses departments?

The answers reveal where investment and organizational change can make a difference.

SME banking has already shown how much better a single process can become. The next step is to carry that progress through the wider relationship, so the convenience of joining the bank continues when the customer needs something more.