As fintechs such as Stripe and Square offer more digital business services, Bank Director’s 2026 Technology Survey found banks have increased their own digital offerings to small and midsized business customers.
Seventy-eight percent of the bank executives and directors who responded to the survey, sponsored by Jack Henry & Associates, said their institutions now offer digital treasury management capabilities. That’s up from 69% one year ago. Integration with accounting systems is up from 61% to 77%. Mobile payment acceptance increased from 46% to 58%, with real-time payment offerings jumping from 36% to 49%.
Lee Wetherington, senior director of corporate strategy for Jack Henry, said banks started taking fintechs more seriously after seeing them take trillions of their deposits over the past few years. He believes their concern grew even more once the GENIUS Act was signed into law. It developed the first federal regulatory framework for stablecoin and resulted in dozens of nonbanks applying for national trust bank charters.
“And over the lowered moat of regulations and legislation that have been protecting the bank charter franchise come these fintech companies,” Wetherington said. “So, you put all that together, and to me, that’s why you’re seeing this move.”
Wetherington joined his colleague, Jennifer Geis, senior strategic advisor for research and payments on Jack Henry’s corporate strategy team, for a FinXTech webinar about the ways banks can continue to compete with fintechs. Greg Neumann, banking and fintech editor for FinXTech, moderated the discussion.
This interview has been edited for brevity, clarity and flow.
FinXTech: In Bank Director’s 2026 Technology Survey, banks identified several areas where they have increased their own digital offerings to small- and mid-sized business customers. Is that a direct reflection of that competition the banks are now feeling from fintechs?
Geis: It’s encouraging that your research is showing that [banks] are increasing their digital offerings and specifically targeting the small business market. Because if you think about just the market share for QuickBooks, they have about 85% or maybe even higher of the small business market.
Wetherington: The other thing that you’re seeing with treasury management uptake is a lot of heavy lifting in terms of not just data, but documents and that kind of thing. That’s getting a big boost from generative [artificial intelligence]. Summary management, report generation, a lot of things that used to be somewhat manual are now being automated. As AI agents come in, you’ll see another wave. Being able to automate chasing after invoices that don’t get paid and just knowing that those nudges are going out automatically — those are really important to small businesses. They want all of that stuff: the payment acceptance, the payment chasing, the receivables — all that gets to cash flow.
FinXTech: Do business customers simply expect more digital services just like they would get anywhere else now?
Wetherington: Another way to say that is that a Gen Z micro or small business owner is just a person. It’s a single person who identifies both as a consumer, but also a small business. And in the average bank, 13% to 35% of that retail checking base is camouflaging micro and small business owners. For the last 12 to 15 years, they’ve been leaving and going out to these third-party fintechs. And then the devastating statistic is that only one of every eight dollars that those camouflaged small businesses collect in those third-party settings ever makes its way back to the bank.
FinXTech: Our survey respondents said, by a 3-to-1 margin, that they see technology more as an engine for improving efficiency than generating growth. Is that the right mindset?
Geis: The problem with that is, it’s treating tech investments as very defensive, more like a cost cutting exercise. But if you look at how fintechs approach this, it’s the opposite. They function with a very aggressive, growth-oriented mindset. They look at how new tech can solve customer pain points. If banks view emerging technologies defensively, and they’re really just trying to protect existing business models, they will lag behind. Efficiency gains in the back office don’t defend banks against fintech innovation and deposit attrition.
FinXTech: About 64% of those surveyed said their bank has a data strategy. But are they doing as much as they could with that data when it comes to identifying new digital business opportunities and customers?
Wetherington: They don’t have enough data on their own customers. Banks, on average, have, at best, around 25% of their existing customers’ total financial data. Banks are going to need to prioritize strategically and ask their customers to aggregate their fragmented financial data. If you can get to a preponderance of the financial data on your existing customers, now you’re cooking with gas, because you don’t have to guess what they’re doing, what they value, what price points they’re paying for those financial services they’re consuming elsewhere. You’re going to know that objectively and definitively based on validated data that you’re aggregating back to the bank.
Geis: The surprising thing to me was that a large amount also reported using generative AI — 72%. But at the same time, of those that said, “Yes, we’re using generative AI,” 55% said they’re using spreadsheets to specifically manage data used by business lines. And the spreadsheet usage went up from last year, so it’s headed in the wrong direction. Another thing the research showed us is that data lake utilization went down and that, again, doesn’t match up to the increased AI usage. So, the banks are implementing AI faster than they’re fixing foundational data architecture. If we want to move toward that aggregated data that Lee’s talking about, and getting our data houses in order, we really need to focus on the infrastructure.
FinXTech: With all of the competition from fintechs and the new technology demands being placed on banks, is the relationship banking model going to be enough to keep small business customers?
Geis: I don’t think it’s enough on its own. If you combine it with the right technology, if you’re making strategies for all the things that we’ve talked about and you have a relationship banking model, again with the trust, [fintechs] don’t have the relationship. Small business owners wear many hats. They have many things to do, many different roles in their business. They need an expert who’s using the right technology that they can trust.
Wetherington: We’re talking about all these things that are going to change. And so, it’s helpful to come back to what doesn’t change. Humans will remain human, and that is to say humans are social to their DNA. Relationships are necessary for humans to live and breathe and to be happy. And in the context of banking and money, humans are needed for accountability. If you’re a bank — it only gets more important.
To watch the full conversation, access the webinar recording here.
In the webinar, it is erroneously stated that 37% of banks offered real-time payments in 2025. The correct number is 36%. The slide on digital bank capabilities from the webinar also incorrectly listed year-to-year percentage increases. The numbers instead reflect percentage point increases.
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