What you'll learn
- Key trends in the small business banking sector
- Crucial strategies for product innovation, focusing on what small businesses really need to succeed in the current environment.
- The impact of artificial intelligence on the workforce—examining whether AI will make certain jobs obsolete and how small businesses can adapt
Transcription:
Chana Schoenberger (00:10):
Good morning. Hi everybody. Hi. Welcome to Vegas. I'm Chana Schoenberger. I'm the Editor-in-Chief of American Banker, which is the host of this conference. Small Biz Banking. Small, so you don't get the whole business, you just get biz. I'm so excited to see everyone here. This is a fun conference that we do every year for the biggest segment of the American economy, right? Small businesses are about 80% of the jobs created. Is that right? Yeah. Yes. Right. And as bankers and as FinTech companies, you all are the ones that are keeping them in business. So they have you to thank for that. We interview bankers all year long who tell us about the things they're doing for the small businesses in their community. And it tips over a lot of times into very community level sort of operations, supporting the local lodges and the scout troops and sponsoring the little leagues.
(01:15):
And every time you go into a small town and you see kids walking into the coffee shop and they have the bank's name on the back of their little league jerseys that this is sort of how America is supposed to work. But in addition to all that very traditional stuff, what you're doing is you're lending them money in new and innovative ways so that they can grow. And it's the growing, that's the important part because this is literally the whole country's GDP is dependent on you. So thank you for doing what you do. What we're going to do over the next two days is we're going to learn from some of the folks who are doing it best about how to do small business banking and how to think about some of the new technologies that are coming down the pike. We're going to talk about regulation, we're going to talk about new rules and new strategies, and I think it's going to be really fun. So thank you so much for joining us here, and I want to welcome up our first speaker, who is Amy Dinkar-Patel. She's the Head of Small Business Banking and Commercial Banking at TD Bank, and she's in from Chicago today. So come on up, Amy.
(02:28):
I see here. Okay, welcome. Thank you.
Amy Dinkar-Patel (02:35):
Thank you very much.
Chana Schoenberger (02:37):
Tell me, first of all, just as an icebreaker, what is the coolest small business that you've patronized recently?
Amy Dinkar-Patel (02:44):
The coolest. Oh my God, that's so hard. I would have to say there is a cupcake company in Philadelphia that is not just a baker, but bakes with little kids. They have agendas in terms of how they serve their communities. So it's with little kids, it's with special needs. It's serving communities in a very, very different way. And I just feel like who doesn't love a cupcake? I mean, I certainly do. And what a way to bring an entire local community together and it's a happy place. It's like it's your birthday, even though it's not, so, yeah, that's great. Okay,
Chana Schoenberger (03:37):
So why are people starting small businesses today and how big do you have to get before you really need a bank?
Amy Dinkar-Patel (03:45):
Yeah, so first of all, I think small businesses, as you said in your opening, it is the crux of this entire US economy, and we are so fortunate to be in a country that truly supports that sort of economy. I don't think there's any magic number. I really think when we think about businesses, whether they're micro, small, emerging, et cetera, it really comes down to the needs. So every business is going to have a very specific need that needs to be accomplished. And I do think there are advisors, and we all know this when we started in banking, that there's very specific advisors at the table for a small business because they don't have a C-suite readily available to them. They're really reliant on their attorneys, their CPAs, and really their banks.
(04:53):
I've been in this business for such a long time, both from large corporate capital markets down to the most micro businesses. And I will tell you that, and I am not biased, I'm a banker, but I will tell you, of course not at all, Chana, not at all. I will tell you, I feel like the banker has always played a pivotal role in so many small businesses that I've seen. I actually grew up in a very entrepreneurial family, and my family started as small businesses that have ended up going into the middle market spaces and sold et cetera multiple times. But the one person that was always consistent in those conversations were banks because it afforded them the capital that was necessary for them to grow. Private equity when I was younger was not as readily available in this space. And I think you and I have talked about this in the past too. We see that a lot more fluid today, and we are fortunate to see some of that because at the end of the day, banks are providers of debt, not equity, but when you can see some of that capitalization happening in the smallest of spaces, we as banks can really come in and be that forefront. Sorry, I probably went on, but I get really passionate about this space.
Chana Schoenberger (06:26):
No, no, that's exactly the question. So how does a bank make sure to be the one to get that phone call when the business owner decides that she needs a loan?
Amy Dinkar-Patel (06:37):
Yeah, I'll say lately, probably since COVID, I've thought a lot, I'm at a place in my life in what I do and how I want to make impact in what we do. I think service is so understated, but it is the most pivotal thing that we could do. And one thing that I will say, I just joined TD Bank two years ago, and I have, if you look at my profile, I've worked for several other institutions. I got to say TD really cracked the code in this. And when I really dug deep, what was it that made TD different from a lot of different institutions? And I'm going to tell you, I have nothing to say. I mean, every institution I've worked for, everybody wants to do this. The code is the service piece. And when you can really provide that true service, I have noticed from bank to bank, the loyalty that the customer will have, it is forever.
(08:01):
And I've seen that the bank, TD Bank has been around in the eastern seaboard for 20 years. There are clients of ours who have probably moved on and moved away from the eastern seaboard, but they still have their banking relationships with a non footprint bank. And I think that just goes down to this is a group of people that I could say this to. We can think about growth all day long. And I feel like the code is if we serve our customers in the way that they want to be served, not the way that we think that they should be served, because we always have great ideas around that, but in the way that they want to be served.
(08:53):
Growth is a sub factor. It's going to happen no matter what. But if we can't crack the code of what that service looks like, and it's different, I think I've had a lot of very specific industries, very, very specific industries. I mean, if you look at healthcare, we've taken healthcare and microscopically developed verticals that's quick and that we can really serve in a market. At the end of the day, if you cannot really fundamentally be available and understand what your client needs before they need it, in some instances, and I know we're going to talk about technology, but you've lost that. And I always tell my team, if you think when you have the client in front of you and you think you're going to make the second or third advisory solution later, you've lost it. You have one opportunity. And I always think of Eminem whenever I one shot, one shot. We have one shot, guys
Chana Schoenberger (10:04):
Did. He's a grandfather now.
Amy Dinkar-Patel (10:06):
Yes, I just found out.
Chana Schoenberger (10:08):
And so what's an example of service the way TD does it?
Amy Dinkar-Patel (10:16):
Yeah, in very simple terms, it's the human connection. We start and finish every transaction that way. We have invested in tremendous technology, but we will not let go of that human connection. We want to make sure that they have access. They have every access to tools that we invest in, but they also have immediate access to a human being in their channel of choice, not in ours. And that takes a lot of work. It takes a lot of work, it takes a lot of effort. It takes a lot of leadership in getting every channel to kind of come together and in a very orchestrated manner. But I think that's what we do best from that perspective.
Chana Schoenberger (11:12):
So that kind of leads into my next question, which is what do small businesses need from their bank today and how is it different from years past?
Amy Dinkar-Patel (11:23):
I think in this rapid environment, first of all, our small businesses have changed some of the stuff that we're seeing that it's such a creative economy. I mean, we are finding the most creative, innovative generation that's not just segmented by a generation, by age, but the generation of the creativeness that's happening in our industries is incredible. And I think what they're looking for is I'm not just a dry cleaner, but I am a service that might provide a dry cleaning service for dry cleaners that does three other things. And we have to be nimble enough to understand the cash flows in the revenues of what this means. It's not so black and white. And that's one of the things that I'm challenging my frontline sales people. And I have a very large staff in the frontline that when a customer comes to you, they're 10 steps ahead of us.
(12:27):
Before bankers were 10 steps ahead of a lot of these companies because we knew we would look at a balance sheet, a P and L, we could tell the story, but it's not so much that way today. And I think you have to be open enough to truly take that time and effort to really understand their businesses. So you can also give some advice back. I will say this, when I think of businesses and when I think of industries that I want to grow for the bank, I always think of how do we take a specific target market and just make sure that we can service at every spoke that this industry might have, but that may have worked 15, 20 years ago, but the spoke is no longer decided by me. It is decided by the customer because their spokes can change and we have to be able to understand how to pivot and pivot with them. And some of that is going to come through technology because we can have some foresight around that. But it is really going to take us, and this is a velocity business, small business is a velocity business for banking, and really fundamentally figure out how we can be quick, how we can understand what they need and we're there for them because if they don't feel like we're there for them. And our biggest competition right now for banks is private credit.
(14:06):
And it's not just in middle market and in large corporate. It is coming down to small business. And so if you want to really truly have that relationship, we're going to have to be very, very concerted in that effort.
Chana Schoenberger (14:23):
Which leads into the next thing, which is how are you using AI to serve small businesses? And do you see your clients using AI?
Amy Dinkar-Patel (14:32):
Yeah, I mean, listen, we all use AI. Has anybody gone on Google and done a search lately? Suddenly you're like, what is this? What's this new thing here? Is this an Apple update? I'm not afraid of AI. And I was on a plane yesterday and somebody asked me, do you think AI is going to replace jobs? And I said, yes, some jobs, sure, of course. But they're going to be repurposed, right? Those jobs, I'm going to date myself right now, but when I first started in banking, I remember the first branch that I walked into was in Chicago, a very large known bank, LaSalle bank, and we had 25 tellers, like 25 teller stations, and every single one of them had a line. I don't know any bank today, or maybe someone might be able to raise their hand. Does anybody have 25 teller stations today in a single branch? In a single branch? No.
(15:35):
And it doesn't mean that those people are jobless. Those people have gone into different jobs and jobs that are created by the internet or other technologies. And so I think AI is going to be important for us. I think AI is going to be even more important in small business because it will allow us to build tools and technologies that can get us in front of our clients in a rapid fashion at their pace, but from our perspective in a rapid fashion, allowing us to think about things that they don't have time to think about. And I'm a real forward AI investor, and I really think that it's going to be a game changer for our space here. Yeah,
Chana Schoenberger (16:33):
Totally. Okay. What are customers asking for today when they call your bankers?
Amy Dinkar-Patel (16:41):
Ease. As much as we have technology that's out there, and I got to tell you, I mean I am really going to date myself now. I mean, I was How many people worked on Lotus Notes? Oh wow. I'm not going to, okay, I'm among a lot of friends. Okay, we're all hanging out. By the way.
Chana Schoenberger (17:03):
This meaning of Gen Xers will come to order.
Amy Dinkar-Patel (17:07):
My current team doesn't even know what Lotus Notes is. So I feel very comfortable right now. I think, sorry, what was, are your customers s I'm enamored today, what they're looking for is ease, and that's where I was going and I apologize, and this is something that I challenge my team every single day. In fact, this is a mantra among my directs. How have we made it easier today and better than yesterday to serve our customers? And it's not just our customers. We have to make it easy for our employees to be able to serve our customers. And I think that is what our clients are looking for. And the reality is, and I started off with this, small businesses don't have the luxury of a C-suite sitting at their disposal to be strategic. They are the strategist, they are the plumber. They are the person that mops up the floor or does the last code on whatever it is that they're putting together. But the more that we think about them in their specific shoes, it doesn't have to be granular because we're not going to go make cupcakes, but what is it that they need? And the more that we can understand that ease, I think is going to be it is something that they are asking without asking us. And I see that over and over when I'm in front of clients and I think we have a great opportunity. This is a great time to be in small business.
(18:58):
And I will say this, Chana, I have seen an influx. We've all seen an influx of small businesses since COVID. And the reality is that people finally had time to think about their creative passions and put them to work.
Chana Schoenberger (19:18):
Well, it's so much easier than it was to turn a creative passion into work.
(19:23):
100%. Because no matter what side hobby you were doing, there are now a million software platforms to allow you to sell it or sell the service, sell the product.
(19:35):
Woodworking or,
Amy Dinkar-Patel (19:37):
Anything. And even if you're not selling a product, you might be selling a service or a lesson, which that's what YouTube has done. There's so much opportunity that's out there today for people to embark on their creative passion. Then I think that our parents or grandparents probably, I always think I've become a little bit of a historian that imagine if we had the capabilities that we have here today, if we gave that to generations in the past, how further far along when we have been. And so you're absolutely right. When we think about Etsy, we think about all these different platforms and people building businesses from micro to macro to emerging, whatever you want to call it. That opportunity has really, really flourished. The thing is, Chana Etsy has been around for a long time. Yeah, but I think it took COVID, even though I do fundamentally think, especially this group here, boy, I mean, I don't know.
(20:53):
I was rolling out of bed and rolling into crawling onto my chair at my desk during COVID because we were all part of the Triple P phenomenon here. But somehow you still had this ability to just think and think a little bit more creatively because everything came to a complete stop. And it allowed a lot of people to think about their own creative passions and build upon that. And I will tell you, companies today are a lot more open to people having their full-time, corporate jobs, and also having a side business, which helps our economy. It helps are part-time, our hobby economy really flourish. And so that's where the banks, that's where technology, that's where banks can really come in to help continue and forward those passions.
Chana Schoenberger (21:55):
Okay. So you also look after commercial. So how does a small business graduate from being small to being in the commercial tier?
Amy Dinkar-Patel (22:09):
I'll do a little bit of history here. Again, years ago, it would be very unusual for a micro business to go into a small business and then to a macro business. Today, I think, and I know this actually, it's not that. I think today because of the amount of capital that we have in our economy, it is allowing more and more small businesses to grow at exponential rates. It is also because banks have become a lot more strategic in how they are lending to these small businesses. It is actually my goal as an organization that I want to manage and monitor how much of our businesses are growing into that next segment. And I put that goal on my teams because that to me comes down to advice. If we're not advising to advise our clients to get to that, and listen, micro businesses are a totally separate topic.
(23:20):
Our jobs as bankers is to help enrich our entrepreneurs strategies and their lives and their jobs, what they're out. And what they want to do is create impact for their own individual wealth as well as their employees wealth as well as their communities. And so when you can do that and start thinking about how we as banks can be a part of that economic growth, this is where I see that, and this is where I know that we could be a lot more concerted in our effort of showing that graduation and providing that graduation from micro to macro to emerging.
(24:11):
I think it's happening a lot more at a much more rapid pace today, Chana, than it has in the past. And a lot of it is because of the things that I'm talking about right now. But I also think with AI and just with more capital in the economy, we're going to see a lot more of that. And we're going to have to be very, very, have the capability and the capacity to create that growth. And this is where we get stuck as banks. We get stuck in that segmentation gray area because we like to think in channels and we like to think in silos, and we like to say, well, Joe over here only deals in this segmentation, but Sally here has this, and then there's this gray area, and I love the gray. I want to live in the gray. I think there's so much happening. Gray is the new black, and that's where the hottest nightclub is. And I'm trying to change that mentality in banking that let's debunk the gray. Let's start meshing this together and figuring out how we can truly build businesses from scratch. Just like our clients. Our clients are doing this, so we have to be able to do it too.
Chana Schoenberger (25:30):
Definitely.
(25:30):
Okay. It's funny because people always refer to a day job, which is when you work for someone else. And of course the opposite of that is when you're an entrepreneur, you don't have a day job, you have a 24 hour job, they just don't turn it off, which is how someone can move from micro all the way up to Marshall and eventually they become a household name is the goal. So okay, we were talking about being Gen Xers a minute ago. Let's talk about generational differences. So how do you interact with younger bank customers as they're starting their own businesses and what's the difference in what they want and need and what a more older entrepreneur would need?
Amy Dinkar-Patel (26:17):
Yeah, I think it's a very interesting time for us right now, Chana. When I think about technology, we're building one technology that needs to serve different users, but also technology that to this very exact question. So I have an 18-year-old son, his ability to rapidly look at an app and I do this, this is what he does. I'm sitting here, hold on, but I haven't read the fine print yet. Don't swipe up.
Chana Schoenberger (26:54):
Nobody reads the T's and Cs,
Amy Dinkar-Patel (26:55):
Right? And I do. I mean, I think our generation does. We kind of want to get into the granularity of it. To build technology that is simplified, doesn't have to be segmented. I think by age, and I'll break that down for everyone. The reason why we read fine print is because our generation or Gen X generation, we had a lot of fine print to read, unfortunately throughout our careers and our lives. But if you've noticed technology and Apple, apple has done probably the best job in this. Apple's not a creator. Apple takes something and makes it better. That's my philosophy. Sorry if I've offended anybody that thinks Apple's a creator, et cetera. But I think there's a genius in that. And I also believe that in bank technology, if we can take things that are much more simplified, it won't matter which generation is interacting with it, but we have simplified that technology.
(28:05):
And that is the part that, listen, it's every bank. I've worked for different bank. We are not good at that. We're just not. And while we keep saying that, we're building things that are of ease and easy for our clients to deal in, I always ask my platform folks and my tech for folks, I always ask them, who is it easy for you guys that have built it? Of course you guys are living in this for like 12 hours, 12 hours a day. I'm telling you, a banker that can actually navigate through this. It is complex. I can't understand this. So how in the world are we asking a non-bank client to achieve what we're asking them to achieve? And I do think that that is not generational. We are building product that should be easy across every generation because trust me, I think you and I would love not to read fine print. Yes, right?
Chana Schoenberger (29:10):
It's great, but
Amy Dinkar-Patel (29:10):
When it's there, you and I are going to read it. But if it's not there, it's not there.
Chana Schoenberger (29:16):
Another interesting thing about small businesses is that they're people usually not very many people. It's one guy, women and everyone, even us, but especially younger people, they expect the amplification of everything. Now, if I can get an Uber to take me to the airport in 10 seconds or less, if I can order a Starbucks coffee and it's waiting for me when I get off the subway, I just walk right through the building, pick up the coffee, keep going to my office. I do this every time. It's very, very simple. Starbucks knows what I want. They can let me reorder to the place the particular store, and it's just waiting for me. I want my bank to be able to do the same thing. Yes. And consumers who are small business owners don't understand when financial institutions say things to them like, well, I'm going to need a wet signature on this, or we're going to call you and your treasurer to approve this wire. It's like, why? Where's my Frappuccino?
Amy Dinkar-Patel (30:17):
We don't give frappuccinos right now, but maybe that's next, right? No, I think you hit it. It's spot on. And some of the stuff that we talk about with my tech partners is exactly that. There's channels of choice. And here, I'll even take it one step further. We want that. I want to be able to get up in the morning, get my order in, put a time in. By the way, now you can put a time in that you're going to arrive when you're going to arrive at your location and have everything ready, because that's how I want my coffee. But if that coffee wasn't exactly what I wanted, is there someone there that's going to be able to help me? And I think coffee, and I am glad you talked about a frappuccino. I always tell my banking is a highly regulated industry. So is Starbucks, guys, food is a highly regulated industry.
(31:17):
So when people keep coming to me and saying, it's regulated, we can't do this. I push back and say, that burger that you ate just five minutes ago, that was regulated too. We got to overcome that. And you're right. And that is exactly the types of tools. That's exactly the type of technology. And that's exactly what I'm trying to say here is we have to become a lot more easier for our clients to be able to bank with us in their channel of choice at their time, at their pace without a lot of frills. Boy, you better be able to give them that frappuccino Exactly at the temperature, at the sweetness level, everything that they want because you've given them the technology to pick all that. But being able to do that with ease, I don't think banking's there. I'm going to be very honest. And I'm sorry. I know there's a lot of tech. Pardon?
Chana Schoenberger (32:13):
Definitely not.
Amy Dinkar-Patel (32:14):
No. But there's a lot of people here today. I know we all fundamentally want to get there.
Chana Schoenberger (32:22):
It's almost not even. So there's the ordering the frappuccino stuff, which is the happy things. But then there's the opposite, which is when I get something from Amazon that is wrong or broken, that I can return it pretty much seamlessly, seamlessly. It's not a big deal with three taps of the app, it's going to let me choose 12 different places. I can drop off my item, I can take it somewhere. I can have it picked up from my house. It's completely free to me. I can choose whether I want a box or I want to print a label. And so they take, and you always get a message that says, how can we make it right? You can't make it right. You sent me the wrong thing, right? Send me the right thing now. But still you messed up. But it makes customers happy and they feel if not pleased, at least satisfied.
(33:09):
You've answered their question. And the problem with banks, problem with banks is that it's very difficult to, things happen all the time with people's money where they have problems, or maybe it's a business trying to pay a vendor and the vendor is having a problem. But there are all kinds of unpleasant situations where people have to call their banker and it's like going to the dentist. And there has to be different ways for technology to help the bank do that so that even though it's a sticky situation, and often it's not the bank's fault or even the bank's problem, you can solve that for them and make them feel like they had a happy interaction with their bank.
Amy Dinkar-Patel (33:51):
Yeah, I mean it's exactly that in the whole Amazon example here is that's a product. And Chana, you hit on it when you're dealing with people's money, that's a whole another level. And when you make a mistake there, and to your point, sometimes it's not even our mistake. And sometimes there's been precedences that have been set years and years ago. I think it's changed a lot. Now, let's talk about fraud for a second. Sure. It's a multi-billion dollar industry, and it's not just affecting banks, it's affecting all of us. It doesn't matter how it could affect us at our local health care provider, it's affecting us in every way that you can think of. And that's not a bank's fault. No, of course not. Especially sometimes when we hear some of the stories, well, yeah, I did give my password to my neighbor, and it's like
Chana Schoenberger (35:08):
After clicking on the box that says, don't do that, my temper to my neighbor.
Amy Dinkar-Patel (35:15):
But yet when that happens, when their livelihood has now been tampered with, it is the bank's fault because they associate the safetyness of their money and their safety net with the bank. And that is a very, very difficult position in our industry. It's like, you didn't protect me from myself. I'm an idiot. 100%. Yes. And we get that. I mean, it's constant. Let's talk about Zelle for an example. It's probably one of the most innovative platforms that we could probably have for the ease of, I don't need to go and write you a check anymore. I could just do it right then and there. Please don't. Because check fraud is really a thing. Actually don't use checks, but it's the one tool that we are building tools in a good mannered, in a good thoughtful way that's being impacted by fraudsters. And to your point, Amazon taking a return back because of a damaged good is not the same thing as a bank.
(36:39):
Having a client that had fraud that was just imposed on them. It's very different. And you're right, when we're solving problems, Chana, in these, at our respective banks, we are solving problems in the sense of, well, how does Amazon do it? How does Starbucks do it? How does all of the, because at the end of the day, 80% of our lives, we deal in those types of applications and platforms. And so why can't we have that in our healthcare? Why can't we have that? And healthcare is probably going to get there before banks. No, I just think they will. But why can't we have that in banking? I think banking is just that.
(37:23):
It is just that difficult. It's complex. It's very, very complex. We want all of the access. We don't want to answer any of the questions. We want all of the access. We want to be able to do million dollar wires from our phone and not bear any of the safety questions. And that's difficult. That's a lot of work for us right now. And I mean, when I talk about, by the way, let's talk about what happened in pandemic, right? Fraud is no longer just technology based. We're seeing check fraud. That was like in the 1980s and nineties. We're seeing scamming frauds. People are actually getting scam. People are scamming people on a telephone where we didn't have that. But all of this stuff reignited itself suddenly. And I think a lot of it came from people sitting at home, trust me, as micro businesses flourished, so did fraudster businesses because they had a lot of time to think. Work from home, work from home. Everything's from home. But those types of challenges that I have every day, it's on my mind every day, Chana. It is something that it is not as simple for us to solve because the livelihood that comes with people's money is much more, it is critical.
(38:53):
I had a client years ago, their entire balance sheet was in their account and they made, it was a big fraud scheme. 9 million wired out. It crippled the company. In fact, it crippled them so badly that if they didn't have the patents that they had, I think they would've filed bankruptcy. Wow. And it went into litigation that it came down to where as a bank, it wasn't our fault. They literally had a hack in there and they didn't have the safeguards placed in their hard drives, et cetera. And it came down to, but you owe us this money. And we're like, we don't understand that logic, but we wanted to be there. This was a client of ours that was a client of ours for over 25 plus years. We have been there partner for a very, very long time. And it's a longer story, but that's reality. That has really happened. And it happens to a lot of our clients every day, and it's very difficult and we have a lot to do. This group here has a lot to do to achieve that.
Chana Schoenberger (40:27):
Okay. So I want to talk about partnerships briefly with fintechs. So how do you work, because a lot of the folks here are from fintechs. How do you work with fintechs in small business and what are you looking for in a FinTech partner?
Amy Dinkar-Patel (40:42):
Can I ask a question to the audience? How many fintechs are here? Can you raise your hand?
Chana Schoenberger (40:47):
Yay. Welcome, fintechs.
Amy Dinkar-Patel (40:50):
I want to say thank you because we could not, as banks, we could not develop the technology that you guys passionately do. I think banks, it is critical for banks to be open to looking at the technology that's being well thought of, that's investing in our industry. Listen, I think there are some really great FinTech companies that provide technology to banks, that can enable banks to do the very things that we're talking about here today. So your question about how I've partnered with fintechs, I make a concerted effort to making sure that I sit down, not me personally, but my team. When we go through this, I want to know on a quarterly basis, how many fintechs are we having discussions with? How are we thinking about our business? Because we can't be thinking about our business in a silo manner in a closed room in my office.
(42:03):
There is nothing I can teach you that our FinTech partnerships, potential partnerships can help us get to that next level. I think as banks. So those of you who did not raise your hands, I'm assuming we're all from various banking institutions. I think as banks, it is our responsibility to making sure that we sit down with our FinTech perspective, partnerships to think about the technologies that we need because it is all of the things that I've been saying. In order for us to bring ease to our clients and to our employees, we're not going to be able to build a lot of this stuff. I come from a very large bank. I've worked for GIBS practically my entire life. And I got to tell you, some stuff can be built. And even when it is built in-house, I am always a proponent of using FinTech technology to help us propel whatever else that we have built.
(43:01):
I think like small businesses, most of you guys are in your own business. So for me, it's critically important to continue to keep those dialogues going. I know a number of you guys have reached out to me directly and I've been passing on your information because I welcome that. I think in order for us to solve the very things that you were bringing up, in order for me to be an Amazon from a customer service and a delivery perspective or a Starbucks from an ease and convenience perspective, I'm not going to be able to do that on my own. Banks are not going to be able to do that, and I don't care who's sitting here, but if you're a banker and if you think that you can do it on your own, I'd love to have a cup of coffee with you. I want to figure out how you've cracked that code. So I want to say thank you to all the FinTech partners. And I also want to say that continue to keep solving problems because you guys have the capacity to really take a problem and be very agile with it.
Chana Schoenberger (44:09):
That makes a ton of sense. Okay. We're going to have an official from the SBA here tomorrow. So that's the closing panel, and I'll be interviewing her, which is going to be fun. How do you interact with the SBA and its lending programs, and what can banks do to expand credit, which I know is a big focus of the government right now?
Amy Dinkar-Patel (44:31):
Yeah. First of all, the SBA program was established. I get this mixed up, so please don't quote me. I think it was 1958 or 1956. And a lot of people, it's interesting, a lot of people don't know that that program has been around for that long. Just imagine our government has, as the American economy, we are pro business. So the government back in the 1950s created this program to invest in micro businesses and small businesses. And so many programs have evolved from that. We have SBA, we have SBIC, and there's some treasury grant programs as well. And I think I do spend a lot of time with the SBA folks at the White House. And some of the things that we do from a strategic perspective is in small business there isn't a lot of equity. I mean, a lot of the equity that comes into the businesses are from their personal credit cards, their savings from their 4 0 1 Ks. I mean, there isn't equity. And so I fundamentally think, know and have seen the successes of SBA and SBA programming. We are the number one SBA lender in our footprint. By the way, today, I just found out from one of my execs that runs that program, we are officially the number, sorry, we are officially eight years in a row. Those numbers came out today, but great, thank you.
(46:21):
What we have done in that space is we took the program and figured out a way, how can we serve each segment? Because SBA can go up to $15 million in lending, I think is actually some years it has changed up to 2025, and it's hovered around there, but it also goes down to $25,000. And that's a lot of money for someone that needs, I don't know, a food truck or an oven or commercial mixer. Exactly. Or a computer or a super computer, whatever it is we have done, our focus will always remain. And I think this is one of the reasons why we do so well in this program. Our focus will always remain. We've taken all of the governmental programs and segmented them, and we have become real good experts in each of those segments within these programs. So we do a great deal of lending in that 15 to $25,000 space.
(47:38):
It's out there. It's not a program that was built for me. It's built for all of our potential customers, but the agency is us. It's the bank. And we have to be able to want to do that. And I'll tell you TDs whole fundamental thought process around the SBA seven A program. And in that micro space, we want to do business in our local communities because we want to enrich our local communities. We're not going to always do the 50 million deals or the lead agent deals within our commercial banking platforms. We have to be able to do the small community loans and SBA, and I know they're coming tomorrow and we've had such a great relationship with them. They are invested in what we're doing and we're invested in what they're trying to do. But it is really important for all of us who do provide banking services to use these programs.
(48:49):
I also have to say Chana, I think SBA has had a, I've spent some time with Comptroller Isabelle Guzman, and one of the things she's asked me, she's like, well, how do people feel about sb? I am like people cringe because it's a tough program sometimes. And again, the ease of getting these programs out there is critically important. And I know that the SBA is really working hard. I mean, they came out with their new SOPs. I mean, there's the good, there's the bad, but there's new SOPs that have come out from the SBA that has been, I think, forward for us to be able to deploy the capital that we want to deploy. But I also think there's a sounding board today at SBA that understands how critically important it is when small businesses cannot access equity capital that the SBA programs have to show up in a very different way. And I'm very proud that TD has maintained its number one status with SBA within footprint. We're in units and the unit part I'm not going to give up on because the more that we can touch, I don't want to go off of growth dollars. I want to touch more and more businesses as much as we can.
Chana Schoenberger (50:16):
So, great. Yeah. Well, we're out of time. Thank you so much, Amy. Thank you. And looking forward to hearing more about this.
Amy Dinkar-Patel (50:22):
Yes, absolutely. Sure. So thank you.