These enhancements cover how “businesses select solutions, onboard, access insights, manage payments and serve customers across multiple channels,” the bank said in a news release Tuesday (Nov. 3).
“The investment reflects clients’ increasing need for merchant services to bring together payments, software, data and financial expertise,” Truist said. “Truist’s enhanced solutions are designed to fit how clients operate today with the flexibility and support to address more needs over time.”
With its new digital onboarding experience, Truist says it has shrunk the time from a client’s decision to proceed to execution by up to 80%.
Truist plans to extend the experience across more merchant services solutions as time goes on. In addition to enhanced Truist Merchant Engage capabilities, the bank wants to widen access to Clover merchant solutions and Paze for online checkout.
“We’re raising our ambition in Merchant Services,” said Chris Ward, Truist’s head of enterprise payments, said in the release. “We’re creating a simpler, faster and safer experience for clients, with smart solutions that give businesses better insight into payment activity and help them manage more of their operations. That creates more value for clients today and positions them for what’s next.”
He added that merchant services is evolving to encompass more than just payment processing, and that the winners in this space will combine payments, software and data “with a deep understanding of a business’s cash flow, capital needs and growth plans.”
PYMNTS wrote about the evolution of merchant services earlier this year, after an earnings season that showed that the field had moved from just moving money from cardholder to business to encompass everything from payments to back-office efficiency.
During quarterly updates from companies including Block, PayPal, Shopify and Fiserv, executives described merchants wrestling with increasing operating complexity, fragmented sales channels and pressure to keep clients engaged while managing costs.
“The common thread running through the results was that many businesses still want direct relationships and operational support, even as commerce becomes automated and software-driven,” that report said. “The growth revolves around who can become embedded in a merchant’s daily operations.”
Small and mid-sized businesses, especially those running physical as well as digital storefronts, often lack the internal technology resources to meld together payments, marketing, payroll and financing systems by themselves.
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