On a late summer morning in New York City, industry leaders gathered at Mastercard’s Innovation Hub for Tearsheet’s flagship The Big Bank Theory Conference 2024. The event this year was dedicated to exploring the future of small business support in the financial sector. Attendees, ranging from fintech startups to established banking incumbents, anticipated insights from some of the most influential voices in the field.
Setting the Stage: The Global Impact of Small Businesses
Kicking the day off was Salah Goss, Senior Vice President for Social Impact at MasterCard’s Center for Inclusive Growth. Goss began by painting a vivid picture of the small business landscape worldwide.
“Imagine a world without small businesses,” Goss challenged the audience. “It’s almost impossible, isn’t it? That’s because small businesses make up 90% of businesses and 50% of employment worldwide. In the US alone, they account for 50% of the GDP.”
Goss went on to introduce MasterCard’s “Strive” program, a global initiative designed to support small businesses through three key pillars:
- Access to credit
- Access to digital tools and digitization
- Access to networks and know-how
She shared an inspiring success story that brought these pillars to life. “Let me tell you about Brian,” Goss said. “She’s an urban farmer in Watts, a community in LA, where we support an organization called Think Watts. Through our digital payment tools and analytics, She could suddenly see which plants her local farmers’ market preferred – indoor houseplants or outdoor flowers. Brian’s sales skyrocketed by 70%. That’s the power of digitization for small businesses.”
Goss continued, “In Strive USA alone, we’ve already helped partners unlock about $44.2 billion in affordable credit to small businesses. But we’re not stopping there.”
Beyond the goods and services SMBs offer they often also function as community hubs. Critically, SMBs provide jobs and fuel for their local economic engines; just under half of private sector employees are employed by one of the 34,000,000-plus SMBs in the US.
While every business is unique, there are some common challenges— concerns around tracking, forecasting, and understanding cashflow, for example. Time is another: SMB owners and managers wear so many hats, from selling a product or service to often serving as a one-person HR department.
“Running a small business is hard and owners are looking for help. Frequently, they’re turning to the partners they already trust, like their banks, to help solve these pain points. As our co-founder and CPO, Tomer London, likes to say, ‘There’s never been a better time to build tools for SMBs.’ Banks have an incredible opportunity to do just that,” said Yi Liu, General Manager of Gusto Embedded.
The Art of Partnership: A Banker’s Perspective
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