This blog was originally published in September 2024 and has been updated to incorporate new research.
Financial institutions know that businesses—especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMBs)—represent one of the most resilient sources of deposits and non-interest income. According to Alkami’s Top Trends Shaping Business and Commercial Banking in 2026 report, institutions are focused on digital account opening and onboarding, AI-driven relationship management, real-time treasury solutions, and enhanced data access for SMBs to drive growth with business banking solutions. That opportunity has only grown more critical amid competitive pressures on net interest margins and the rise of digital alternatives for business financial services. Banks and credit unions that operationalize data insights are better positioned to uncover business opportunities and differentiate with tailored commercial banking solutions.
Every financial institution holds vast volumes of transaction and behavioral data. The challenge isn’t access to data, it’s transforming that data into actionable insights.
By combining transaction data with product usage and competitive intelligence signals, banks and credit unions can gain a holistic view of their business account holders without months of manual analysis. This data-driven approach empowers business relationship managers to have informed, value-driven conversations that position the institution as a trusted financial partner.
With cleansed, enriched, and real-time data analytics, institutions can pinpoint competitive opportunities such as:
Each of these behaviors signals an opening for cross-sell or relationship expansion.
Community and regional financial institutions often lack dedicated data science teams. Even where teams exist, research shows they frequently spend a substantial portion of their time preparing data rather than generating insights. Alkami’s Data & Marketing Solutions has the easy button for actionable data insights. The team of data engineers and library scientists at Alkami is dedicated to delivering precise first-party data enrichment results in the form of data tags. More than 50,000 data tags are available to design personalized banking experiences for your account holders.
Here are a few key data tags that provide data insights into business behaviors, helping financial institutions identify cross-sell and competitive business opportunities.
Competitive Merchant Processing Data Tag: Identify businesses that use external merchant processing services, indicating an opportunity for the financial institution to introduce its own merchant solutions.
Competitive Business Financing Data Tag: Track businesses that are making payments to business financing products at other institutions, offering the financial institution a chance to compete for that financing relationship.
Competitive Payroll Processing Data Tag: Flag businesses that use third-party payroll providers, signaling an opening for the financial institution’s payroll solutions.
Competitive Business Insurance Data Tag: Highlight payments made to external business or commercial insurance providers, giving the financial institution the opportunity to offer in-house or partnered insurance services.
Business Billing Platforms Data Tag: Identify businesses utilizing external billing platforms, which the financial institution can target with its own solutions or integrations.
Competitive Business Loan Payments Data Tag: Track the amount of business loan payments made to other institutions over the last 30 days, allowing the financial institution to identify high-value opportunities to refinance or provide more attractive loan terms.
One of the most powerful outcomes of enriched data insights is the ability to produce targeted outreach lists based on real business behavior, not guesswork.
Rather than blanket mailers or generalized campaigns, business relationship managers can:
Behavior-driven engagement is more relevant, increases conversion potential, and elevates the relationship beyond a transactional engagement into strategic partnership.
When financial institutions combine enriched data with analytics, they unlock several strategic advantages:
At a time when data volumes and competitive pressures are both increasing, institutions that use analytics to uncover business opportunities will be better positioned to grow deposits, expand lending portfolios, and strengthen client loyalty.
