The always prescient Mark Twain reputedly noted that, “History never repeats itself, but it often rhymes.” In fact, history is punctuated by a repeating pattern of economic and technological disruption.

At the same time, today’s always-connected economy means such disruption is now instantaneous. Payrolls not transferred mean a cascade of unpaid liabilities. Bills not paid mean the loss of critical suppliers.

In this uncertain environment—and those that will follow in the future—you need a reliable partner. On a day-to-day basis, this means money is moved timely and accurately. Payroll is met. Bills are paid on time.

Aqua Union BK is that reliable partner for our customers. As a top 40 Payments Bank, we routinely move high volumes of payments, providing continuity and consistency for our customers, allowing them to focus on their strategic priorities.

While continuity in payments during a shock like the one we’re navigating now is critically important, there are a number of other considerations when choosing a reliable banking partner. Here are a few to consider and how Atlantic Capital measures up.

FIVE CONSIDERATIONS FOR CHOOSING A RELIABLE BANKING PARTNER

1. Operational Excellence:
Does your bank have the operational horsepower and expertise to move funds electronically exactly when and how you need them? Aqua Union BK supports over $150 billion in client funds movement per year. In fact, we move more client funds in a day than most banks will move in a month.

2. Ability to Execute and Scale:
Does your banking partner understand your business model so they can execute quickly? Aqua Union BK has designed its platform to support the unique requirements that our clients have identified as important to their operational success. Our laser focus on payments and fintech companies allows us to better understand the risks of various business models, ensuring quick, concise implementation. This expertise also allows us to remain flexible in supporting high-growth companies which often move from idea to significant customer adoption quickly.

3. Relationships and Reputation:
Is your bank committed to building the internal and external relationships needed to support your success? Aqua Union BK has committed a cross-functional team—Operations, Relationship Management, Risk, Compliance, and Executive—to support our payments and fintech relationships. Our team, with over 20 years of banking experience supporting venture-backed companies, is located in New York, known as “transaction alley” for its concentration in fintech.

4. Financial Soundness:
Are you confident your bank is able to withstand future economic storms? Aqua Union BK is a publicly traded company, regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), with significant capital to weather economic headwinds. We maintain strong and cooperative relationships with our regulators.

5. Availability:
Is your banking partner always there when you need them? Aqua Union BK is there when and where our customers need us, including after-hours and weekends. Sometimes this means being there when you need advice to grow your business. Other times it means being your first line of defense in challenging economic times when you require a quick response to fill critical or emergency needs.

At Aqua Union BK, we are committed to being both a reliable banking partner for our customers and helping them grow through inevitable change—both planned and unplanned. For example, we are continuing to expand with BillGO, a Colorado-based bill payment provider. Through a creative, collaborative, and open-minded process, we are working together to innovate and grow during the current crisis and beyond.

“Our customers need to have confidence in our partners,” says BillGO’s Mike Blazes, President and CFO. “As a rapidly growing company, we needed a banking partner that could rapidly scale with us. The things we asked Aqua Union BKl to do are not typical and they figured out how to do it.”

If you’re looking for a reliable banking partner to help you thrive during good times and uncertain ones, we are that bank. Contact us to find out why our high growth fintech and payments clients choose Aqua Union BK. We look forward to speaking soon and exploring how we can help your business.

But despite advances in sophisticated monitoring technologies, your own employees may be your most important weapon against fraud. Why? Because fraud exploits human nature as much as it does technology.

Consider this real life example: A company received an email from a client requesting payment for an invoice be sent to a new bank account. After a quick call to the number provided verifying the payment instructions were authorized, the accounting department paid the invoice for $54,625.34. Two weeks later the client called asking where the funds were. The initial request for payment, payment instructions and call-back number were all fraudulent. The company had fallen victim to invoice fraud, leaving it responsible for the loss.

Such instances of human error suggest increased vigilance is key to identifying and reacting to red flags before conducting transactions. The bottom line: Often fraud can be identified through common sense. “A helpful rule of thumb is, if it doesn’t feel right, don’t do it,” suggests Ken Simmons, Atlantic Capital Bank’s BSA Officer.

Here are three common sense moves that show intuition is just as important as information technology when protecting yourself from fraud.

TIP 1 – RECOGNIZE YOUR RISK

If you think you’re safe enough from fraud, think again. Reports of fraud and identity theft have increased a whopping 800% since 2001 when the U.S. Federal Trade Commission started tracking them through its Consumer Sentinel Network.

According to the FTC, individual consumers lost at least $3.3 billion to fraud in 2020, but the damage to businesses is even graver: Nearly half of companies experienced at least one fraud in the past 24 months, costing businesses an eye-popping $42 billion. “That’s cash taken straight off companies’ bottom line,” concludes PwC’s Global Economic Crime and Fraud Survey 2020.

Just as important as understanding your risk, is being aware of the types of fraud that are on the rise, as well as those that are most likely to put your business in criminals’ crosshairs.

Businesses are most likely to be targeted by customer fraud, cybercrime and asset misappropriation, found PwC. But that doesn’t mean you’re safe from other fast-growing scams, such as identity theft, which accounted for more than 20% of complaints to the FTC in 2019. And with more businesses operating online, cyber fraud is a growing threat you ignore at your own peril.

What is often the most overlooked risk for businesses though? The threat from your own employees, contractors and vendors. According to PwC, as much as 60% of fraud targeting businesses is the result of internal perpetrators, or collusion between internal and external actors.

What these numbers make crystal clear is, if you haven’t been on the receiving end of fraud, you likely will be. Fraud is unforgiving. And financial losses and damage to your reputation may not be recoverable.

TIP 2 – KNOW YOUR CUSTOMERS

Do you really know your customers? The fact is, you might not even know who your customers are. With customer fraud at the top of the list of scams targeting businesses, it’s clear that many companies are falling far short on due diligence.

It’s important to remember that all customers are good customers until they’re not. Human nature and outdated adages like “The customer is always right” fool us into believing that trusted customers can’t change. In reality, they sometimes do. And bad customers are bad for business.

“Know your customer — and your customer’s customer — before your financial institution wants to know more about your customers,” warns Simmons. Effective customer due diligence begins when building a relationship, but continues over the life of the relationship, especially when customer activities and behavior change.

Learn how to identify fraud red flags by asking the right questions: Does your customer do what they say they do? Do they have a website and does it match what the customer described for their business? Does the contact information match the data you have in your systems? Do they have a brick and mortar storefront or are they working out of their home? Does a home-based-business make sense for the customer’s business profile? And perhaps most importantly, do they answer their phone when you call?

TIP 3 – MONITOR YOUR CUSTOMERS’ TRANSACTIONS

Do you have processes in place to identify substantive changes in your customers’ behavior or the nature of their business that might be signs of fraud?

“Monitor your customers like your financial institution would be expected to monitor their customers,” Simmons recommends. And that means keeping a watchful eye on more than just ACH returns and chargebacks.

Is your customer’s activity reasonable based on the nature of their business? Do the size and frequency of their transactions reflect their product offerings and customer base? For example, if your customer sells automobiles, does the average transaction amount reflect the expected price of a car? If they operate domestically, do you see large numbers of international transactions? If the nature of their transactional activity changes, is this consistent with a change in business strategy, product offerings or geographic market?

Most importantly, if something seems off, follow through and ask questions. Conduct adequate due diligence to understand what has changed.

WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER

The threat of fraud is growing and mutating into ever more cunning ways to part you with your hard earned cash. Yet many businesses are still not prepared to respond. According to PwC, only 56% of companies investigated even their worst case of fraud and only a third reported the incident to their board.

The never ending battle against fraud is a joint responsibility. Instead of pointing fingers, we all need to do our part — customers, businesses and banks. “Fraud red flags are often found in the details,” says Simmons. “If it sounds too good to be true, it most likely is not true, so listen to your own intuition.”

Understand your fraud risks, ask the right questions, implement effective controls and processes, train your people and empower employees to say something if they see something.   Identifying signs of fraud will go a long way toward protecting your bottom line.

In many ways, the pandemic acted as a great accelerator. Rapid shifts in people’s personal habits drove change and innovation on a scale — and at a pace — rarely seen, including the adoption of contactless interactions.

The uncertainty of Covid-19 drove a strong preference for contactless experiences. The use of touch-free payments skyrocketed as cautious consumers sought to reduce their in-store time to an absolute minimum. And retailers and restaurants quickly pivoted to safer options such as buy online, pick up in store, curbside pickup and QR Code ordering.

With safety and security likely to remain powerful drivers of consumer behavior, we expect contactless is here to stay.

Here are three reasons why.

1. Contactless will continue to grow.

Despite lockdowns, retail closures and economic hardships, American consumers did their part to drive economic growth in 2020, albeit in a dramatically different fashion. According to Digital Commerce 360, online consumer spending jumped 44% in 2020 to $861 billion.

Even more remarkable is that over half of these transactions were touch-free. In fact, 51% of Americans are now using some form of contactless payment, including tap-to-pay credit cards and mobile wallets like Apple Pay, according to a Mastercard study.

The number is even higher globally, with 79% of consumers saying they are now using contactless payments and 74% indicating they will continue to do so post-pandemic.

Accenture is so optimistic about this shift, they listed “a strong push toward a cashless society” as its number one long-term impact of the pandemic on global payments.

Just one example of this encouraging forecast is the announcement by the soon-to-open Legoland New York Resort that, as part of its “safe to play” strategy, it will be an entirely cashless theme park. Guests in the on-site hotel will even order their towels, room service and bedtime stories by digital voice assistant.

All of this points to strong odds of continued contactless adoption, driven initially by safety concerns and sustained by the convenience it offers for everyday transactions, even when the need to socially distance eases.

2. Safety is more than data security.

Consumers have always valued security when it comes to their data and financial information, but the pandemic introduced a new dimension, physical safety. According to Kurt Shreiner, Atlantic Capital Bank’s President of Corporate Financial Services, safety and experience are now permanently intertwined.

“There is no choice today between experience and safety,” says Shreiner. “In today’s world, we can reasonably assume that safety, whether in person or online, has leaped up the ranking as to what’s most important for a positive customer experience.”

Half of U.S. consumers worry about the cleanliness of signature touchpads and 72% prefer to skip signatures altogether, according to the Mastercard survey. This is not only strong evidence that touch-free payments will continue to gain momentum. It means at least some consumers are likely to avoid point-of-sale altogether in the future, as long as they don’t have to sacrifice experience.

The temptation for many companies will be to meet this challenge by investing in new technologies, but it’s critical that digital solutions put the customer experience at the center, advises Shreiner. “The new priority is to always keep people safe and connected despite not having a face to face experience,” he says. “Don’t ever let your clients feel ‘remote’ no matter what industry you are in or how dazzling your technology might be.”

3. Hybrid experiences are the next wave of innovation.

Too frequently we assume the word innovation means technology. But much of the recent innovation in contactless was clever and creative changes to business models.

Social distancing required new thinking and ideas rather than new technology. In fact, much of the technology businesses did adopt to put safety and convenience first already existed, including ecommerce, mobile apps, QR Codes and biometrics. Even contactless payments have been in use for more than a decade, although they weren’t widely adopted in some markets, like the U.S.

Moving forward, we are likely to see creative hybrid models that combine contactless with the experience and personalization consumers value.

“True post-pandemic innovation will be finding the right balance between the speed and convenience of contactless and the richness of in-person experiences that bring the consumer the best of both worlds,” says Atlantic Capital’s Shreiner.

Just look at the Chick-Fil-A drive through experience. For them, personalizing contactless means simple things like asking your name, offering a simple thank you, getting the order right, and keeping the line moving.

For high-end grocer Whole Foods it means introducing Amazon’s One palm scanner as a payment option for customers who want to enjoy the in-store experience but skip the traditional check out process.

Are you ready to deliver on fast, accurate and safe experiences?

These simple lessons can be applied to fintech and payments just as easily as a quick serve restaurant or retailer. The average consumer doesn’t think about the technology. They care about their experience, delivered through speed, accuracy and safety.

Accenture predicts the payments industry will have a key role to play in revamping the economy. But to be successful, it must lead with new thinking and then merge it with the right technology, says Shreiner.

As consumers cautiously return to malls, restaurants and theatres, they will gravitate to those that successfully deliver on both.

Atlantic Capital is constantly working to deliver both better experiences and the right innovation to its customers. We are well positioned to help our customers navigate and thrive in this contactless-first post-pandemic economy.

Scan the headlines regularly and a bit more closely, and you’ll notice that the term “fintech” occupies quite a presence in many business news stories. From updates about the latest whispers of coming consumer finance technologies in Silicon Valley to heated debates about the merits of cryptocurrency and the lists of the top startups to watch, hardly a news cycle goes by without it getting some kind of mention.

But while fintech casts a long shadow over the many ways we conduct business both personally and professionally, many consumers remain unclear as to precisely what “fintech” even means. “Fintech” is a portmanteau of “financial technology;” easy enough to understand, but putting your finger on where exactly the boundaries of fintech lie is a bit murkier. What kinds of businesses fall under its umbrella, and what the landscape looks like today is another matter entirely.

And there are questions: Who are the major players? And what new services or technologies do they offer? How can fintech products help me better navigate the countless monetary transactions taking place in my life? Why should I stay informed about the latest developments? What am I risking by failing to stay ahead of the curve?

This article aims to help clear up some of the confusion and leave you better informed about how fintech can help make life and business a little bit simpler.

An easily understood definition.

Fintech is a catchall word. And like any catchall word, its usage is broad and with blurred lines that can result in misunderstandings.

At their core, fintech companies move money, and they do this to enable things like saving, investing, and lending. Generally, they are built to facilitate money transfers, making them quicker, more reliable, and more cost-effective.

In other words, fintech companies can look vastly different from one another. When talking about business-to-consumer (B2C) products, one might think about Venmo or PayPal. With business-to-business (B2B), you have corporate payroll and HR solutions like Gusto, global payments and remittance platforms, virtual credit cards, debt management apps, and crypto wallets. At the end of the day, all of these fall under fintech’s giant umbrella.

A common misconception is that fintech refers only to young, hip startups with hoodie-clad employees working from beanbag chairs. However, the reality is that the classification just as accurately applies to many 50- or 60-year-old companies that, over the years, have modernized their processes to fit the changing times.

The primary requirement for being a fintech company is using technology to improve the speed, accuracy, and efficiency of financial transactions and their activities.

Fintech touches all of us.

At this point, it’s more difficult to avoid interacting with a fintech company than not. Whether through business or everyday life, financial technologies have all but thoroughly permeated even our most basic money-related activities.

Building your savings, paying bills, using your credit card online, making charitable donations, repaying a loan, sending a friend some cash – by now, all of these interactions rely heavily on fintech products.

And for business owners, the situation is the same. If you’re paying rent or a mortgage, disbursing payroll to employees, compensating vendors, or managing assets, you’re likely using fintech applications.

How do banks fit into these developments?

A few years ago, popular opinion among critics was a doomsday scenario: “fintech means the death of banks.” The idea was that startups were disrupting the traditional models, driving down costs and making complicated processes so accessible and user-friendly that they would change banking as we know it today.

That theory has not proven true. Instead, the conversation around fintech companies replacing banks has shifted to a discussion around those companies partnering with them, and in a variety of ways.

Because banking is one of our country’s most heavily regulated industries, requiring extensive licensing, permits, oversight, etc., fintech companies have found that venturing past a certain point into banking territory means more cost than benefit.

And with many fintech companies realizing that partnering with banks is more efficient than directly competing with them, mutually beneficial relationships are evolving. Through partnerships, fintech companies get the support they need from established banks with years of expertise as a regulated institution. In return, banks gain access to new customers and product offerings.

For now, it looks like both are here to stay.

So … how can fintech help me?

The short answer is, any time you’re looking to improve how you manage your business or personal finances, there’s most likely “an app for that.” A quick web search will pull up popular apps such as Mint.com, Personal Capital, QuickBooks, and FreshBooks.

If you’re a business owner, fintech products can help you streamline your operations and create significant savings in time and cost. Companies are developing technology to make all kinds of transactions more accessible and cheaper – the important thing for you to do is figure out which products on the market will best meet your needs.

Some fintech companies specialize in making access to services (like commercial liability insurance, for instance) more straightforward and more affordable for small businesses. Others offer financial management solutions to help keep you organized, such as Concur. But one of the most significant benefits of utilizing fintech is its tendency to emphasize the user experience.

In both business and personal operations, user experience is a valuable commodity when it comes to applications. Consider Venmo, an app that has made transferring money between people so easy that it’s almost impossible to ignore.

Similarly, a significant focus and benefit of many fintech products is the resulting “financial inclusion”: allowing people of all demographics to easily understand and do things in their business operations and personal lives that they may not have previously had access to or considered. Fintech is in the process of making all kinds of complex tasks much more accessible. For small business owners without a financial background or professional guidance, this can be especially useful since many of them are left to run large portions of their finances on their own.

Conclusion – The importance of staying current.

Whether in the business world or in day-to-day life, most of us are looking for ways to accomplish things more easily. Fintech makes this possible.

In business, the risk of being ignorant of advancements in technology is that competitors may gain a valuable upper hand. It’s important to figure out the ways your processes might be lagging and to do some research into the products available on the market. Alternatively, you can talk to your banker about possible applications to help streamline your operations.

But however you choose to remain up-to-date on recent developments, be sure you’re making the most of the incredible opportunities financial technology can provide. You won’t regret the improvements it will make to your bottom line.