Understanding Commercial Banking: A Guide for Businesses

The world of commercial banking continues to grow as more businesses need services to help with their scaling up and reaching out of more customers as they build their brand and expand their presence. This is no exception in Indonesia, where, according to OJK (Indonesia’s Financial Services Authority), trillions of rupiah circulates as commercial banks provide their services every month.

To help you in your business’ journey, learn what commercial banking is and find out how it can help you. Learn more about the available products that would be beneficial for your business. Find the right options that could lend a hand in the expansion of your business and making it thrive in Indonesia.

As a start, we need to gain understanding on what a commercial bank is. By default, a commercial bank is a financial institution that offers a variety of banking services - these services might include loans and a wide array of other financial products. While a commercial bank can serve individuals, more often than not they cater to businesses, answering their needs and providing financial solutions to help with the smooth running of their day-to-day operations.

Many commercial banks usually have a specialized division or department for these institutional clients. If you need to enlist their services, it is best to consult with them on how they can aid your business’ financial goals.

The term commercial banking itself, however, refers to more specific elements of banking that are designed specifically for businesses. While every bank offers different services, these are some of the popular offerings:

As businesses grow and get more customers, they would have more receivables that need to be managed properly. Receivables services can help you in managing your working capital through an enhanced visibility of your fund. Many services can be offered here, ranging from the physical collection of money to data processing and information delivery. Having a local presence in the country that your business operates in while at the same time enabling it to receive payment on a global scale can ensure the sustainability of your business for years, or even decades to come.

Some banks also offer receivables reports that will help you concentrate on other strategic aspects to grow your business.

Aside from the management of working capital, the key to your organization’s success is by making available of more, or, in other words, improving your working capital. Your goals may vary from self-funding growth to balance sheet enhancement, however, the underlying remains: you would need to gain more control over your cash flows.

Through various means of trades and receivables financial solutions, a working capital help could assist you in managing incoming and outgoing cash more efficiently. As a result, your organization can grow its working capital and continue to move forward to reach more people.

Whether it is for the need of staying global or establishing a stronger local presence, digital banking platforms would be beneficial for your business. By having a robust and dependable digital financial platform, you would be able to receive and send payments as necessary in a more practical way.

A good platform would present itself as a one-stop-solution for all of your accounts. This means that everything is centralized in one place – check the balances of your account, access statements to see your recent transactions, see which payments are pending and which ones have been cleared and verified, and create payments in a fast and easy way without compromising security.

A good, quality app for the platform would be a bonus that your business can benefit from. The most common app formats are for iOS and Android devices, which would enable you to access your accounts on-the-go at any time.

Liquidity is important to sustain your business. Crises can happen at any time in any area, but it is vital when it arises in your liquidity. A liquidity crisis shows a lack of cash flow and it will endanger a business' well-being. As a precaution, taking the necessary measures that will help ensure that you will not be experiencing it has become more important for the survivability of your business.

A good liquidity service will provide investment options while at the same time making sure that you are in control of your liabilities. This way, the efficiency of your operations is improved. It should also be applicable to be integrated seamlessly with your organization’s existing treasury management systems, making it easier for you to adapt to it – resulting in an efficient day-to-day running and operations of your organization.

Some other factors to consider in this area of services are the availability of time deposits, which would help multiply your funds and be withdrawable by their due date; and specifically-designed local-compliant solutions that follow a region’s rules and regulations, ensuring that your business is staying up-to-date with any applicable compliance requirement.

After learning more about commercial banking, the next step that you would need to take is contact your local bank to open an account. A local commercial bank would be your best choice because they are compliant with the legal aspects in operating in a region. They could also help you navigate new territories as you first set your steps in the region.

While the available products and services may be listed on their website, reaching out to them is always good because these banks could usually provide services that can cater to your needs as a business owner, helping your organization thrive and prosper.