It’s hard to be the primary financial institution (PFI) for your member if they are not doing direct deposit with you. But if your member is a business, what then is direct deposit? A business will typically receive many payments during a month. How does a credit union make sure those deposits go to the credit union and not a competitor?
Quickbooks, Stripe, Freshbooks, Square and many others allow your members customers to pay an invoice easily with a credit or debit card. But you have no control over where those deposits end up. Same for paper checks, ACH transfers, Zelle, PayPal and etc. The deposits your business member receives may or may not end up in an account with you.
Keeping your fingers crossed is not a successful strategy. You need control over where the money ends up.
There is a simple solution, you, the credit union, should allow your members to send invoices directly from digital banking and allow your members customers to pay the invoice with the deposit going directly to your members account.
When the credit union processes incoming payments for the business member, that is roughly the equivalent of direct deposit for a retail member.
The “Send an Invoice/Pay an Invoice” feature of digital business banking may be the most important feature to offer a business member.
Author: Chris Doner, Founder & CEO, Access Softek