Commercial banking leaders gathered in New York on October 20, 2026, for the Commercial and Small Business Banking Forum (CSBB). Welcoming everyone to the event on the common needs of building confidence in the ROI of new capabilities, selecting the right vendor, validating business decisions, thinking through artificial intelligence (AI), energy was high and the audience ready to learn and exchange ideas!
Where Financial Institution Relationships Fall Short
The opening keynote, “The State of the Union: How to Win Treasury Relationships,” set the stage for the day and premiered fresh data based on a Q3 2026 Datos survey of over 1,000 mid and large corporates as well as a Datos Q1 2026 survey of over 1,000 small businesses. Among the most glaring gaps illustrating the urgency of the problem, 72% of businesses say their primary FI requires multiple platforms or sign-ons to reconcile or transact, and 65% say their bank’s technology doesn’t integrate well with their ERP or accounting system.
When it comes to the biggest pain points and gaps that businesses have with their FIs, not much has changed in a year. Businesses continue to turn to fintech firms to close some of their operational problems: 78% of businesses work with a fintech vendor for cash management or payments, and 50% use two or more. Further underscoring the problem is that 47% of businesses plan to switch FIs to access faster payment functionality.
The message organized insights around four pillars:
- Payment rail modernity. 88% of businesses either send or expect to send real-time payments in the next 12 months, and over half already do.
- Products and capabilities. Businesses choose their FI for payment reconciliation, ease of submitting payment files, and systems integration, among other reasons. They choose a fintech vendor for those same reasons, but also cite better overall functionality.
- Showing the value proposition. Data-driven insights is the lowest-rated area for FIs industry-wide. Banks should show insights before clients ask for them.
- Positioning for what’s next. Integration, reconciliation, and payment file ease are the top areas of focus, showing continued market demand for better connectivity, visibility, and speed.
Adopting AI with a Clear Framework
AI was also highlighted in the session “AI: Where We Are One Year Later,” showing how quickly usage is advancing throughout the industry. Nearly 60% of corporates use AI for banking and payments today, and 96% expect to within two years. About three out of four small businesses already do, and 89% of corporate banking executives expect a moderate to revolutionary impact in the next 12 to 18 months.
The session argued that AI-enabled fraud, not rogue AI, is the risk banks face today, and its advice on selling AI was blunt: sell the outcome, not the AI label. Datos’ viability framework asks FIs to answer five questions before investing.
- Does the workflow need AI, or will rules-based automation do?
- Should the bank extend an incumbent, partner, or build?
- Is the data fit for the use case?
- Who decides, who overrides, and what gets logged?
- Does the full cost hold up against the baseline?
ERP Integration and Implementation Risks
Beyond AI, ERP integration has moved to the front of the list of pain points. Among U.S. employees at mid- and large-sized organizations, 46% cite getting payments data into accounting or ERP systems as a gap in their payment processes. Banks and their technology providers are responding by forming partnerships for secure data connectivity. Customer-facing APIs and ERPs also top U.S. banks’ cash management initiatives, according to a Q3 2025 survey of U.S. financial institutions.
While banks are rushing to keep up with innovations centered around payments and connectivity, they are also simultaneously balancing concerns about successful implementation and product rollouts. Datos-moderated roundtables addressed the fact that over half of financial institution executives are very or extremely concerned about transformation execution, and another 30% are moderately concerned.
Roundtables including “Pressure Testing Real-Time Payments” and “Commercial Onboarding and Lifecycle Management” gave commercial banking and payments leaders an intimate setting to speak candidly with peers facing the same challenges. Each session surfaced real-world experiences, honest benchmarks, and practical strategies.
Where to Start
The gaps business clients named this year are the same ones they named a year ago, and closing them is where treasury relationships are won. Identify where clients must juggle multiple platforms or sign-ons to reconcile or transact with you, where payments are too manual and lacking in modernity, and fix those points first. Confirm that every AI initiative has answered the five viability questions before it receives funding. Then show clients the insights you already have before they ask for them.
For more information on the Commercial and Small Business Banking Forum and Datos Insights, reach out to Erika Baumann, Managing Director, Banking & Payments, at [email protected]
