Smartbiz
Brief
SmartBiz, a San Francisco-based AI-powered financing platform that connects small businesses with SBA loans, received regulatory approval to transform into a bank by acquiring Centrust Bank, a community bank based in Chicago. This marks the most significant transformation in the company’s history. As a long-time Vested client, SmartBiz sought its trusted partner to develop and execute a comprehensive communications strategy for announcing the acquisition to all stakeholders, including employees, customers, and partners.
Approach
It is uncommon for a fintech company to gain regulatory approval from both the Federal Reserve, which primarily grants charters to bank holding companies and has significantly reduced its chartering activity in recent decades, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which has issued only a handful of new national bank charters each year in recent times. Vested’s strategy involved developing key messages, FAQs, background materials, and an announcement strategy of disseminating the news to all stakeholders via the website, emails, direct calls, and social/earned media. This ensured timely and accurate communication with SmartBiz’s key stakeholders at the launch. Vested also conducted embargo outreach for earned media, targeting a select group of fintech, banking, and small business reporters to secure coverage in top-tier publications.
Results
We secured 7 interviews for CEO Evan Singer, resulting in substantial media coverage in major business and trade publications. Just three days after the announcement, our news was featured in 37 stories, reaching over 430 million readers. We coordinated an exclusive interview with Paige Smith, a consumer finance reporter from Bloomberg, who was the first to cover the story. This article served as an anchor piece to driving the news cycle and helped position SmartBiz as an industry leader alongside major players like Lending Club and SoFi.
Coverage
Key stories included coverage in: Axios highlighting SmartBiz as a ‘fintech to watch; Banking Dive detailing how unique this acquisition is, reaffirming SmartBiz’s commitment to technology and customer service; Reuters featuring the news in a trends piece about fintech and crypto companies seeking bank charters for growth; the San Francisco Business Times underscoring how this deal enables SmartBiz to better serve small businesses; and The Financial Brand emphasizing the rarity of this kind of regulatory approval, among many other feature stories and mentions.
Execution
