Overview:
David Pijor, CEO of FVCbank, discussed the impact of tariffs on small businesses, highlighting the uncertainty they create, which could lead to a recession. He emphasized the role of community banks like FVCbank in providing innovative financial solutions and building long-term relationships with clients. Pijor introduced Business Insights, a tool offering real-time financial data and cash flow forecasting, aiding small businesses in managing growth and financial planning. He advised small business owners to develop strong relationships with banks for better financial advice and security. FVCbank can be contacted at 703-436-3800 or through their website, FVCbank.com.
Transcript:
Prefer reading over listening? You can read the full transcript of the interview below.
Impact of Tariffs on Small Business
Intro (0:02): WMAL, making sense of the vote, because elections have consequences. Download the WMAL app to stream us for free.
Rick Fowler (0:10): It is the Saturday morning update on WMAL, I’m Rick Fowler. There is a lot of talk of tariffs and the impact on small business. And we’re joined this morning by David Pijor. He is the CEO of FVCbank here in the Washington area. We’ve talked to David before, and welcome back to WMAL.
David Pijor (0:30): Thank you, Rick. It’s good to be back.
Rick Fowler (0:33): We know that FVCbank specializes in serving small business in the Washington area, and there are stories out this week about the impact of tariffs on small business. What do you see as the landscape when it comes to small business and the impact of the tariffs?
David Pijor (0:51): Well, Rick, that’s certainly a very timely question, and I guess it’s fair to say that it’s hard to tell what the impact will be at this point, but that’s significant in and of itself. Small Business has one large component of business. Generally, the United States depends on certainty to make business decisions, whether to invest new capital, to expand, increase inventory, to grow its business, and the current climate has so much uncertainty involved in it. The tariffs are off again, on again. The kind of flip-flopping around, what’s going to happen with tariffs, in and of itself, lends uncertainty, which makes decision making a little bit harder for all business, including small business. The direct impact of tariffs, it’s too soon to tell, but there’s certainly a concern among a lot of economists that I read and a lot of our customers at the bank that an extended period of global tariff could increase the chances of recession. Many of our small business clients are retail or consumer based, and whether they’re B to C or B to B, there’s a concern that the economy pushing toward a recession will not help small business. Will not help any business, but certainly small business clients of ours are concerned about the potential of the tariff impact to lead to more recessionary trends in the economy.
Challenges of High Interest Rates and Inflation
Rick Fowler (2:22): Tariffs, just one issue facing small business. We’ve seen interest rates, they’ve been up. They’re coming down maybe a little bit, but still high. Inflation is coming down a little bit, but prices are still set high. You’ve got potential supply chain challenges with the tariff situation. So how does that affect access to capital? And what do you do when you specialize in small business to address these needs of the small business community?
David Pijor (2:51): Well, we do a couple of things, Rick, and as you well know, community banks are the bread and butter of many of the communities in the United States. And if small business is the engine for growth of the US economy, and it has been for the last 30 years, it’s community banks that are the fuel for that engine. As the community bankers, we try to provide innovative financial solutions to our customers, and we do that with small business especially by first of all, understanding the challenges of our small business clients, by getting to know them well. We are a relationship bank at FVCbank. We build long term relationships, which gives us the opportunity to know our business clients really, really well over multiple cycles, ups and downs. As such, we could become more than just a source of capital or payment rail. We become a trusted advisor in times of financial uncertainty, one of the things that community banks do really well is advise their business clients on simple ways to secure their payment stream, avoid fraud, as you well know, Rick in times of recession or even uncertainty, financial fraud, old fashioned check fraud and other more sophisticated kinds of fraud increase. Community banks like FVCbank are well positioned to help advise clients, small business clients, how to avoid, or at least mitigate the risk of financial fraud. So as a financial advisor with a long-term relationship with a lot of technology, tools and, other devices, we serve small businesses especially well, I believe.
Role of Community Banks
Rick Fowler (4:23): You mentioned the term community bank, and we’ve talked about it before, but for somebody that has not, you know, really heard the delineation of a community bank versus a different type of bank or different label on a bank, what is it specifically about a community bank?
David Pijor (4:40): Rick, that’s a really good question. And there’s no clear definition for what a community bank is. The way we define community bank, and I think the way the industry looks at community banks is, you know, a smaller, say, sub ten billion bank that’s focused on serving the needs, the commercial or, or some case, consumer needs of the communities it serves. A bank where every client is big enough to be important, and a bank that still nevertheless has the tools to provide a fairly sophisticated level of financial credit and payment solutions to their customer.
Financial Management Tools for Small Businesses
Rick Fowler (5:16): So, there’s not only the struggle for financing in small business, but what about financial management overall?
David Pijor (5:24): Indeed, one of the challenges of the many small businesses is not having the sophisticated suite of accountants, controllers, CFOs to help manage and forecast trends in the future, generally. FVCbank has a unique tool. We offer a tool called Business Insights, and it’s much more than just standard banking. It provides our clients and business owners real time financial data, cash flow forecasting, key performance indicators, essentially offering CFO level analysis, even without a staff CFO. Business Insights help business owners analyze cash flow, project financial trends and make informed decisions more profitably. That’s one of several tools that we offer specifically for small business
Rick Fowler (6:14): Now the program is called Business Insights. Where do you see that in terms of the importance to a small business. In other words, they may have choice of different programs to work with, but what do you see as the benefit over other programs?
David Pijor (6:31): Well, we find that small business generally struggle with cash flow management and financial planning. Business Insights is a helpful tool that can anticipate financial challenges and give them information to make data driven decisions for their growth, comparing their data with peer data, which can be very timely and helpful, certainly in an uncertain environment. How do you manage growth in the face of uncertainty? We think Business Insights is a really helpful and very robust tool to help small businesses manage their business in ways that they may not have the capabilities without the full suite of chief financial officers, etc,
Advice for Small Business Owners
Rick Fowler (7:10): And with the uncertainties that we’ve talked about, what advice would you have for a small business owner today?
David Pijor (7:17): I think one of the best advice I give our banking clients is similar to the advice I gave them when I practiced law for many, many years, and that is, develop a really good relationship with a bank. A relationship with a bank means not just having a 1-800 number, but having the telephone number of your banking relationship, as you can call on a Sunday night when something awful happens. Small business, like all business, is rarely a straight line to success. They have ups and downs, and having a relationship with the bank that knows you, that can give good, sound advice is especially important in uncertainty. In addition, FVCbank, like many of our peers, offers a lot of tools that help make banking safer, sounder, more secure, and provides more than just, as you said, loan and deposit services. We provide perspective because the fact we deal with 1000s of clients, small clients, small business clients every day to advise on strategies to help mitigate some of the uncertainty going forward.
Contacting FVC Bank
Rick Fowler (8:21): So David, when I called you Friday, I called and I got a live body at the switchboard who transferred me to your office. I doubt that would have happened in most of the banks around the Washington area. So, tell us a little more about how people can contact FVCbank, especially small business owners.
David Pijor (8:42): Well, Rick, we pride ourselves in our closeness with the community, and we can be reaching a number of ways. You can call the bank directly, 703-436-3800. You can access us through our website, FVCbank.com, that’s FVCbank.com and we’ll be happy to respond quickly and responsively to any and all requests. We love hearing from our clients, both new and prospectives, and look forward to continue to serve our community.
Rick Fowler (9:13): And again, online, that is FVCbank.com, that’s Foxtrot Victor Charlie and David Pijor is the CEO at FVCbank. Thank you very much for the updates on how small business can address the tariffs and the current economic conditions. Much appreciated.
David Pijor (9:31): Thanks, Rick. Take care.
Rick Fowler (9:33): You too.
