CBA general manager of merchant solutions Karen Last with group executive for business banking Mike Vacy-Lyle and Charles Wang,business owner at cafe Nevaggio.Credit:Louie Douvis
Services for small business owners is emerging as a key battleground as the banking industry competes for returns amid historically low interest rates. NAB has long branded itself as Australia’s biggest and leading business bank,but CBA has made inroads over the past 18 months beginning with arecruitment drive of 120 business bankers.
Chief executive Matt Comyn has expressed his desire to grow market share in the lucrative sector and in June senior executive Mike Vacy-Lyle described CBA as the“sleeping beast” in business banking,pledging to disrupt the sector through product innovation.
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CBA on Wednesday launched a new fleet of merchant terminals that enable small business owners to plug into two network providers and Wi-Fi to avoid restrictions on accepting payments during service outages. Next week,CBA will roll out a flat fee of 1.1 per cent for all instore transactions,slightly cheaper that NAB’s 1.15 per cent starting rate.
Ms Last said the revamped merchant terminals were an important tool for the bank to attract new small business customers,and the new features were implemented in direct response to customer feedback.
“If you sit in one of our call centres and listen to calls for any duration of time,connectivity is always a key issue. You can never afford to have merchant terminals down,” Ms Last said.