Professional customers are major consumers of banking products and services because of their activity (financing, electronic banking, etc.). With an average net banking income per professional customer of more than double that of an individual customer, they represent a real growth driver that is leading banks to rethink their approach to this clientele.

The expectations and needs of “Pros” are different from those of Individuals: while the latter are increasingly embracing the digitalisation of services with the provision of “mass market” self-care tools, Pros are looking for differentiating offers capable of responding to the development cycles of their business, while facilitating their daily lives. They are very attached to face-to-face advice and expertise with a dedicated advisor whom they perceive as a true “Business Partner” essential to supporting their growth.

Banks have long been interested in the specificities of professionals. They have continuously invested and innovated in their offers while favouring a close affinity relationship with their customers. They now wish to go further to address the expectations and needs of their Professional customers, such as the management of the dual Professional/Individual relationship.

In this context, Open Banking has come at the right time: by opening the way to an ecosystem of innovative external solutions and services – banking and non-banking -, this new economic model seems to provide interesting and complementary responses to the efforts made so far by the various institutions.

In order to differentiate themselves while meeting the needs of their customers, banks can position themselves on new services that they consider legitimate to offer. To do so, they can make the appropriate strategic alliances with innovative market players (FinTechs, neo-banks) and deploy new services in an open platform/ecosystem logic, while going beyond the historical banking approach of vertical integration of the producer-distributor type.

We believe that Open Banking is an opportunity to be seized by the players in the marketplace: we therefore wanted to address the theme of Open Banking for professional clients in a context of digital transition for banks.