How To Find a Business Bank Like A CFO | Ep 2

🏦 How to Choose the Best Business Bank | Full Send CFO

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📢 Choosing the right business bank is more than just convenience—it’s about optimizing cash flow, fees, and growth potential. In this episode, we cover:

✔️ The biggest mistakes business owners make when selecting a bank
✔️ Key factors CFOs consider when choosing a banking partner
✔️ Best banking options for small and growing businesses
✔️ How to avoid hidden fees and cash flow issues

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 - Introduction: Why Choosing the Right Bank Matters
00:44 - The Mistake of Googling “Best Business Bank”
01:25 - Different Types of Business Banks & Their Pros/Cons
02:00 - Key Criteria for Choosing the Right Bank
02:47 - The Importance of Customer Service & Relationship Banking
04:08 - Access to Capital & Business Financing Options
04:40 - FDIC Insurance, Security, & Fraud Protection Considerations
05:16 - Best Business Banking Options (Mercury, Relay, Brex, Chase, etc.)
07:06 - Final Thoughts: Building a Banking Strategy for Long-Term Success

 Key Takeaways:

✔️ Don’t rely on affiliate rankings—they prioritize commissions over real needs.
✔️ Choose based on business needs—transaction volume, integration, fees & access to capital.
✔️ Neo banks offer great UI & low fees, but ensure you have a relationship contact.
✔️ Spread funds across multiple banks for operational efficiency & cash security.
✔️ Regularly review fees & transfer times—slow money movement can hurt growth.

📢 What’s your biggest frustration with business banking? Comment below!

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#BusinessBanking #FullSendCFO #CashFlowManagement #FinanceTips #Entrepreneurship

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Transcript

I remember my first business when I started to set up, I just Googled what are the best banks for small business and just walk through that list. And it took me forever to find the right bank for me. And that was a mistake going through the process of trying to figure out a banking partner through a Google search in which most results were just pushing affiliate links was really not the best approach to find a banking partner.

Today, we're going to walk through how do you Pick the right bank for your business, thinking about it like a CFO would. So trying to get you in the mindset of how would a CFO think about a new banking partner? I once saw a business owner lose thousands and thousands of dollars because of the hundreds of thousands of dollars that were hung up due to a really long transfer window in money movement. That was a problem, and that was an indicator that we needed to take a look at a new banking relationship as soon as possible.

So why is Googling best business bank a trap? Most of the top ranked articles that you find are mostly affiliate pages. So they're pushing you towards big banks with the biggest referral payouts. Shocker. That's how a lot of products are slung. That's what you see on social media all the time is affiliate based linking.

And quite honestly, I don't think that's the best approach when you're trying to solve for a really big element of your growing business. Finding a banking partner. You have to understand there's a wide variety of options when you're evaluating banking partnerships You've got the big established too big to fail banks all the way down to the credit unions and then the new neo banks with A variety of sweep networks in the middle.

What we're really looking for and why it matters when you're selecting a bank is because you want it to have a clean UI, a clean UX. So it's easy to use. You want to have access to a relationship, access to capital options, and then quality integration with your financial tech stack. When a CFO is.

Considering what type of bank to use, we're, we're really looking at five, six different criteria. What is the ease of transaction and integration? Does this work well with the tech stack that I've set up? Does it work well with QuickBooks? Does it work well with Xero? How easy is the wire processing? How easy is the ACH transfer?

How easy is bill pay and spend management as a whole? Is that actually baked in as an offering? And what fees come with that, the fee structure and, and ultimately hidden costs on maintenance fees, minimum balance requests, wire fees. If you're sending a wide variety of payments each month, that can really add up.

Now, a lot of the more modern neo banks, they don't actually have fees for any of this. Now they may have a lower yield than Some of the more traditional accounts in treasury and things like that. But you're starting to see parity amongst what neo banks are capable of offering compared to the legacy Wells chase bank of America options like that.

I think it's really important to also be looking at customer service and relationship. Even with neo banks, you want to know somebody at the bank. They don't have a physical presence. You're not gonna be able to walk in and say, Hey, Frank, how's it going? Relationships still matter though. And so to the extent possible.

If you're engaging in a relationship with a neobank. So I'm thinking the Mercury's, the Rho's, the Relay's of the world, you still want to know somebody there. So as much as possible, reach out, try to have a conversation, understand how their customer success rhythms work. It's a very different approach than the traditional.

Bank on the corner approach because they've got more of a SaaS mentality of we're going to have a customer service, customer success department that is available for our customers at any point in time, rather than we have somebody always available and assigned to you as a customer, that's not a deal breaker.

But it's a, just a different way to interface with your bank that I think could be really helpful and just a little bit more efficient way than managing with a traditional bank. So if you have a traditional bank, having a personal banker can, can it be helpful for getting loans and better service and to some degree, faster resolutions, but a lot of these newer banks that are way easier to use.

Way more integrated to your tech stack also have a high degree of that, but just accomplishing it in a different perspective, another thing that you're going to want to be evaluating. If you're looking at it through the lens of a CFO is what is your access to capital? Can you get financing through the bank?

Does this bank understand the needs of my business? If I'm an e commerce company and I've got high working capital requirements, do they understand how to underwrite that from a loan?

Or debt perspective. So loan and credit access is really important. The last piece that, you know, we take for granted because it's just kind of ubiquitous now, but fraud protection, security, FDIC since the collapse of SVB there's a huge emphasis on FDIC funds, what's federally insured and how much of that do I have access through this bank and you're seeing the Mercury's, the Rho's, the.

Brex's of the world have access to sweep networks that your money across a variety of banks to allow for a higher limitation of that FDIC insurance. I've seen up to 25 million in some cases, a lot of the big banks don't necessarily have that approach.

So be really cognizant of a, how those sweep networks work, where your money is actually sitting, what their security protocols are, and then what access of FDIC insurance do you actually have covered at the bank. When we think about best banking options, there are a few that are go tos for us.

We really like Mercury. It's really good for growth businesses, particularly fully digitally native businesses, they've got a great UI, no fees. They do have more of that customer success type relationship, but from what we've experienced in using Mercury for. Our own accounts and also a lot of clients is that they have had a high caliber experience with Mercury.

Another option could be a Rho. So they're really good for again, high growth businesses that have a high emphasis on cash management tools and also low cost wires. Rho is a great option for that. Another option that just be native to your Accounting and financial workflows is just using the QuickBooks checking account.

What I like about that is that it's already in a system that you're using within your GL software. And then also they do have a good high yield account right now. So you can earn yield on your idle cash in a QuickBooks checking account, using their envelope feature, a couple of their options would be Brex relay, and then if you need brick and mortar access, looking at Chase or bank of America or Wells Could be a great option. So when you're evaluating this, think about those key considerations of what your needs are as a growing business owner. Just know that there's not a one size fits all option. So you need to choose based on your business model, based on your transaction needs and volume, your spend management, and then what makes sense for you long term.

It may make sense to spread funds across a variety of banks, maybe using one that has a clean UI for your operational needs and then another bank for more idle cash. Don't pick a bank just because it's convenient or just has a local branch. Don't pick a bank that only has one business account instead of separate accounts.

It's often advisable to use separate accounts for your taxes, your payroll, maybe operating cash flow. There's a lot of ways to think about that. Don't ignore the relationship factor. Even with digital banks, neobanks, having a contact person helps. And then lastly, You just want to avoid the mistake of not reviewing your bank fees and transfer times regularly.

That can be a really big inhibitor to business growth when your cash is not moving fluidly through your financial rhythms. So take a moment, if your bank's not satisfying your needs, think about how you can start to evaluate these things to create a better banking relationship for you moving forward in order to create a more profitable, more sustainable, and healthier business.