When it comes to small business, more and more of the sisters are doing it for themselves, and now Cascade Bank is forming a new business group to cater to the growing number of female entrepreneurs.
The services Cascade offers to business women won’t be any different from those it offers to businessmen, said Charlie Chaffin, who will head up the new Women’s Financial Group.
But the way the services are delivered will reflect different ways women and men go about doing business, she said.
"We’re looking specifically to cater to that woman and what she perceives her business needs are and how she wants her banking to be done," Chaffin said.
Cascade also hopes the move will allow it to expand its small business loan portfolio by tapping into a fast-growing market. The number of women-owned businesses grew by 37 percent between 1997 and 2002, according to the Center for Women’s Business Research. That’s four times faster than the growth in businesses owned by men.
"If you’re a wise lender, yeah, you’re going to want to target women," said Tiffany McVeety, who leads the Northwest Women’s Business Resource Center in Everett.
It’s a relatively new idea in banking, said Chaffin, who left Bank of America earlier this year to launch Cascade’s new program. The Everett-based bank will be the first community bank in Western Washington to offer services intended specifically for women.
California-based Wells Fargo also has a small-business banking program that targets women, which is part of a broader program that includes minority business owners.
Cascade won’t actually roll out the new services until this summer. Chaffin said she’s working to develop a package of specific services, and putting together focus groups to talk about what women business owners want from a bank.
Generally speaking, the products will be aimed at "simplifying banking for the business professional woman and business owner," she said. The program will emphasize personal customer service and be "high touch" rather than high tech.
That model seems to work best for business women, Chaffin said. "They are very relationship-based."
There are differences between how men and women operate in business, McVeety said. "They do go after financing different."
Broadly speaking, men going into business for themselves are more likely to know how to "leverage other peoples’ money," she said. They’re more comfortable going out to seek loans or investors.
Women, generally speaking, are more likely to "treat their business more as their child," McVeety said. They’ll invest everything they have into it — their savings, their credit cards — before considering borrowing money.
That could be because, until recently, banking was handled by the man of the household, she said. "Women came out of their fathers’ homes and jumped into a marriage. That banking relationship was left up to the man in their lives."
That means women starting their own business need basic training in finance, McVeety said.
But there’s a pay-off for banks that can tap into this market, she continued. Women tend to be more loyal customers. If they have a good experience getting a start-up loan, they’ll be more likely to come back to buy more financial services in the future — and not just small-business services. The Center for Women’s Business Research says that 86 percent of women business owners turn to the same place for business and household banking.
"Once you have them, they stay," McVeety said. "They come back for more money, more help."
The new women’s financial group fits in with Cascade’s broader effort to grow its business banking business, Chaffin said.
"It another channel to allow services to reach a specific segment," she said. "It’s something we feel that there’s a demand for right now."
Reporter Bryan Corliss: 425-339-3454 or corliss@heraldnet.com.
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