Greenwich Associates (Greenwich Associates news) reports that 20 percent of businesses worth between $10 million and $500 million have requested competitive proposals for a new bank in the past six months. About 15 percent of small businesses have done the same. In both cases, that's roughly double the rate in the last half of 2009 and up sharply from a year ago.

Why are they looking? It's pretty simple. They want to pay less in fees. Roughly half of small and mid-sized companies cite fees as a top three consideration in issuing an RFP. Secondarily, they want more access to capital. I would suggest that this is a huge opportunity for banks who can adjust to the new climate and a huge risk to those who can't. Fees are only half of the equation. The other half is services.

All banks have to be thinking of ways to raise revenues right now. But you can do that in different ways. The challenge is to raise fees in ways that are accompanied with new services. At the retail level, lots of people are talking about the end of free checking, but some banks are accompanying that talk with additional services, often in the security area. It's all about the value proposition you offer. This is where the marketing folks can really earn their keep.

For more:
- here's the release

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