The Consumerisation of SME Banking and the Smart New Use cases of Cards in Bundling Financial Services
Marja Merentie (Visa), Yanki Onen (Wamo) & Oliver Mohseni (Froda)
Innovations in SMB banking focus on integrating fragmented financial services into unified platforms, enhancing user experience and embedding lending within seamless card-based solutions. Fintechs like Vamo and Froda leverage AI, real-time data, and Visa card infrastructure to offer instant credit decisions, programmable smart cards, and flexible repayment options, addressing the substantial SME financing gap across Europe. By combining lending, payment, and accounting services, these platforms aim to transform SME finance through data-driven insights, instant settlements, and embedded offering of credit, enabling SMEs to manage cash flow dynamically and grow with minimal overhead.
"The future of SME finance lies in giving small businesses a seamless, consumer-like experience: instant decisions, transparency, flexibility, and integration of multiple financial services into one platform, empowered by AI and innovative card-based solutions."
Summary
- SMB banking lags consumer banking due to fragmented services; integrating multiple financial products on one platform is key to ease management. - SME financing needs speed and transparency; credit decisions and lending must move from slow, complex processes to instant, seamless experiences. - Cards are powerful innovation enablers in SME finance, offering seamless repayments and instant settlements, with potential for smart, rule-based payments. - UX plays a critical role in fintech adoption; SMEs need simple, transparent, trust-building interfaces that offer insights and control over finances. - The next frontier in SME finance includes AI-driven credit offers, integrated financial lifecycle management, and bundling services for improved cash flow visibility.
Article
SME banking revolution: How card technology is transforming business finance
Experts at Nordic Fintech Summit reveal how consumer-style experiences are reshaping SME financial services
The traditional gap between consumer banking experiences and those offered to small businesses is rapidly closing, financial technology leaders revealed at the Nordic Fintech Summit on Wednesday. The panel discussion, featuring Marja Merentie from Visa alongside Yanki Onen from Wamo and Oliver Mohseni from Froda, highlighted how card infrastructure is becoming a critical vehicle for innovation in SME financial services.
Breaking down the consumer-business banking divide
"Turning SME services into consumerized financial solutions means unbundling multiple services into one platform to reduce the financial and administrative burden on businesses," explained Yanki Onen, founder of Wamo, during the panel discussion at the Helsinki event.
The speakers highlighted a stark reality: while consumer banking has evolved into streamlined platform experiences, SME banking has remained fragmented, with businesses forced to manage relationships with multiple financial partners for different services.
"Small businesses expect the same seamless and fast financial experience as consumers," said Oliver Mohseni, co-founder of Froda. "They shouldn't have to wait weeks for credit or accounts; speed and transparency are key."
According to the panelists, fintech companies currently hold less than 5% market share in SME lending compared to banks' 94% – a disparity they attribute primarily to existing credit relationships with traditional institutions. However, this landscape is changing rapidly as fintechs integrate lending capabilities into comprehensive service platforms.
Cards: From payment tools to innovation engines
A central theme of the discussion was how card infrastructure is evolving beyond simple payment functionality to enable sophisticated financing solutions for small businesses.
"Cards are not just for payments—they are powerful enablers of innovation that can automate transactions, offer programmable spend limits, and integrate accounting directly into payment flows," said Onen.
The recently announced partnership between Wamo and Froda exemplifies this trend, using card rails to provide instant credit decisions and seamless lending experiences for Finnish SMEs. The collaboration, which began after a chance meeting in the parking lot at last year's summit, now enables Wamo customers to access credit lines calculated in seconds, with funds transferred instantly via Visa Direct.
Mohseni highlighted the scalability of card-based solutions: "Visa's card rails are extremely scalable for us across Europe. No other solution scales like the cards do."
The untapped potential in B2B payments
Despite their advantages, cards remain severely underutilized in business-to-business transactions. Merentie noted that only 0.8% of all B2B payments in Finland currently run on card rails, representing a massive opportunity for growth.
Onen shared a success story from Malta, where offering cashback incentives for government payments via card transformed usage patterns: "Payments shot from zero to 6 million. Tax departments could reconcile instantly. It was a win for everyone."
The panel identified an estimated €400 billion financing gap for SMEs across the EU, with the overall money flows in the B2B space reaching into the trillions – mostly moving through traditional, slower payment channels.
User experience and trust in fintech adoption
While seamless user experiences are crucial for fintech adoption, the speakers emphasized that UX goes beyond interface design, particularly for financial products that depend on trust.
"If the process is too quick, it creates distrust—financial products are trust products," Mohseni observed. "Therefore, the process must be seamless but also transparent, maintaining trust every step of the way."
Onen added that for many SMEs, the bigger challenge is being underserved or lacking access to financial services altogether. The value of improved UX increases as services become more embedded and deliver actionable insights that help businesses make better decisions.
The future: AI-driven financial services
Looking ahead, both speakers envisioned a future where artificial intelligence transforms SME finance by anticipating needs and offering proactive solutions.
"We're in a new industrial revolution with AI changing the way we do things," said Onen. "Predicting customer needs for cash flow in advance, offering insights to monetize, highlighting who's paying late, and bundling all these services with data aggregation will provide better foresight and control for SMEs."
Mohseni predicted innovation beyond traditional credit applications: "With the vast amount of data and AI, we'll be able to responsibly extend tailored credit, seamlessly, as needed."
The ultimate vision, according to the panelists, is a world where small businesses can operate with unprecedented efficiency – running multi-million dollar enterprises with minimal overhead, thanks to integrated financial services that combine banking, payments, credit, and accounting functionalities on unified platforms.
As card-based solutions continue to evolve, the speakers concluded that the future of SME banking will increasingly mirror the convenience and integration that consumers already enjoy, but with the specialized tools and insights that businesses require to thrive.
Part of Nordic Fintech Summit