Community banks create an immense amount of value for their merchant clients. Not only do they better match creditors with borrowers, but they are also essential to the domestic and international payments system. A neighborhood bank’s relationships with their merchant clients and the community organizations they serve, are simply the best relationships forged from a business perspective. The sense of mutual trust, as well as an understanding of business in terms of educating the public and the greater good, literally change lives.
Let’s talk about how Square is disrupting this vital relationship and how they can be stopped.
The Problem With Square
While their flashy branding and attractive sales pitch are undoubtedly enticing, Square is not beneficial to merchants and doesn’t meet their unique needs. On the Better Business Bureau, they have a customer service rating of 1.06 out of 5 stars, which displays their disregard for the needs of the businesses they serve. Here are the most significant issues associated with Square:
- Bad Pricing Model: They have a non-negotiable, flat-rate pricing which hurts small to mid-sized businesses
- Poor Customer Support: Their terrible customer service and no hands-on support, leave merchants in the dark
- No Integrations or Scalability: Their lack of software integrations means their solutions do not align with a customer’s growing needs
- No Approval Process: By not having an approval process, deposits are displaced which raises a community bank’s operating costs
Now that Square has begun to offer loans and deposit accounts directly to customers, community banks are suffering. Square isn’t simply a passive competitor anymore. As an industry issuer and acquirer, there is no space for community banks to operate and provide value to merchants.
Combating the Threat of Square
Celero’s advanced, customizable fintech solutions designed for community banks and their merchant clients are here to combat Square’s disruption of the banking industry. Our BankMax growth program is an absolute game-changer for community banks. This program begins by nurturing a sales culture. Next, it guides your team through the entire sales process from training and prospecting to closing deals and maintaining positive relationships. It’s an indispensable system that will differentiate you from the competition. Here are just a few of the incredible benefits your organization can expect from this program:
- Increase your recurring fee income
- Attract new customers
- Identify at-risk deposits before business is lost
- Acquire and grow your existing merchant accounts
- Achieve your revenue goals by utilizing our real-time sales metrics
- Identify new target market and fee opportunities
- Defend your marketplace and level the playing field for your bank, as well as your small to mid-sized business clients
In addition to helping your bank succeed, your merchant clients also receive a tremendous amount of value. Merchants working with a community bank that uses Celero’s payment solutions receive:
- Negotiable, flexible, and competitive pricing
- Countless software integrations to help them scale their business and better serve their customers
- Customized proprietary solutions
- Effective risk mitigation from our straightforward approval process
- Full-service customer and technical support
- Wide range of payment processing solutions, such as debit, credit, contactless, curbside, mobile, online, and more
- Additional fintech solutions, like remote check deposit, credit and gift card issuing, loyalty programs, and customized PCI compliance
Get Started With Celero and Help More Merchants
With multiple processing platform options, cutting-edge payment devices, business intelligence, and more, Celero will set your bank on the right trajectory. Contact our team to learn more about how we can better help your bank and your merchant clients succeed.