Partner with Your Bank to Remove Irritants and Mitigate Risk

When you’re running a commercial or middle market business, plenty of things are challenging. Banking shouldn’t be one of them.

If you picked a bank based on a flashy rate and found the grass isn’t as green as you expected, seek a partner who is dedicated to you for the long haul. Find a team that will tackle your irritants and help you mitigate risk. Here’s what to look for:

• Dedicated, experienced professionals who answer your phone calls and drop everything to help you when an urgent issue pops up. Better yet, look for a high-performing cross-functional team that can work together with ease on your behalf. You should have more than one point of contact.
  
  
• Optimal account structure to enhance cash flow and improve efficiency. Commercial and middle market businesses frequently have multiple subsidiaries and lines of business. An astute advisor can analyze your various sources and forms of receivables and payables—coupled with consideration of who needs what type of access to which accounts—to create a structure that:
  
  
  • Maximizes collateralization, cash flow and efficiency
  • Mitigates risk
  • Simplifies reporting, reconciliation and audit
    
    
• Attention to what makes you miserable and commitment to putting more ease into the banking side of your business. The smartest bankers will ask about your irritants and barriers to efficiency and then remove as many as possible.
  
  
• Proactive, confident partnership on the things that keep you awake at night. It’s no fun to talk about risks like fraud, phishing or data breaches, but any bank worth its salt puts these topics front and center for the benefit and protection of your company. Experienced professionals give clear advice and tools to help reduce your risk.
  
  
• A skilled treasury team that stays on top of account agreements and acts quickly when notified that you’ve onboarded or terminated employees who have access to your accounts. Treasury services are critical to most middle market and commercial businesses, and the team that serves yours should also work closely with you to ensure payroll, sweeps, wire transfers, remote deposits, ACH collection and other tools are working on time and as expected.