The past year has been especially difficult on small businesses, which account for more than 90% of our nation’s businesses. And with a majority of small business respondents in a recent survey saying COVID-19 has made them more aware of the access to financing options available, there is an urgency to support these entrepreneurs now as they seek to build their financial and credit profiles in order to identify new opportunities and sustain their businesses long-term.
“We know that small businesses need help now more than ever not just to survive, but to manage and grow their operations,” said Joseph Pascaretta, General Manager of Global Small Business for Dun & Bradstreet. “That is why we are accelerating our product innovation and key partnerships in an effort to help small business owners establish and potentially build their business credit profile, which might allow them to gain access to capital.”
Digital-first self-service client experience
Small business clients will now have access to a variety of new solutions to help them evaluate their business credit and risk and find new vendors and partners, all in a modern digital platform. The new experiences will be powered by Adobe Experience Cloud, which brings together a set of technologies that are foundational to digital transformation.
“The past year has seen accelerated digital transformation and many enterprises understand that they have to move services online to best meet the needs of their customers,” said Loni Stark, Vice President, Strategy and Product at Adobe. “We’re excited to partner with Dun & Bradstreet in their digital modernization to provide a great e-commerce experience and access to only the most relevant and engaging content for their small business customers.”
In addition to these enhancements, Dun & Bradstreet has individually partnered with Bank of America, to further educate small businesses about their credit profiles and how third parties may utilize their business credit scores, and separately with Plaid, to help small businesses improve the data and insights found in their credit profiles.
“Small businesses have historically had little control over their financial footprint, impacting the types of financing they could receive and the vendors and partners with which they could do business,” said Pascaretta. “Our new financial services partnerships will give small businesses another way to seek to build their business credit profile, possibly providing new opportunities for growth.”
One of Dun & Bradstreet’s most commonly used credit scores is now directly accessible to any Bank of America client who has an open and active small business account and a Business Advantage 360 small business online banking profile. Once enrolled, small business clients will be able to log in to Business Advantage 360 to get ongoing insights into their Dun & Bradstreet business credit score and receive educational resources to help build and maintain healthy business credit.
“We are pleased to be the first major financial institution to offer our small business clients the ability to access their Dun & Bradstreet business credit score through our Business Advantage 360 digital platform,” said Rob Pascal, Head of Small Business Digital Channels for Bank of America. “Giving our clients greater visibility into their credit score at no cost and providing them with the ability to manage their complete financial picture will help them to build credit and manage their business more effectively.”
A new Plaid integration allows small businesses to securely permission access to their bank account information for authentication purposes, giving them instant access to update their Dun & Bradstreet business credit profile. In addition, small businesses can share their bank transaction details, enabling Dun & Bradstreet to explore new ways to establish business credit outside of traditional payment data, which many smaller companies may lack.
Dun & Bradstreet also plans to create new business scores and analytics for small business via its partnership with Plaid, which could increase the data and insights within their credit profile. This solution will be the first in the business credit space to incorporate permission bank data to potentially create business credit scores and new analytics.
“Small businesses need all the support they can get, and this integration makes the process of creating and building a business credit profile secure and simple, which can lead to better access to financing and more business opportunities,” said John Pitts, Global Head of Policy at Plaid. “We’re putting the same control we’ve already given to consumers into the hands of the business owners so they can grow their business based on their own well-earned financial reputation.”
Dun & Bradstreet clients are already seeing the benefits of the new offers, more streamlined digital experiences, and small business-centric partnerships.
“In less than a month, we’ve been able to improve our credit scores tremendously by working with Dun & Bradstreet,” said Karen Dapkus, CFO at Pinpoint Global Communications. “Improving those scores has proven key in keeping us as a preferred supplier to our best clients.”
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