A Much-Overlooked Competitor

A number of years ago I was interviewing one of the partners of a mid-sized accounting firm about a new service line they launched and during the course of the conversation asked him point blank who his largest competitor was.

Since his practice was in the New York area I expected him to recite the names of several regional or even Top100 firms sited in the tri-state region.

Without hesitating for a second, he simply replied “the banks.”

It took a moment for that to sink in.

Sensing my confusion, he proceeded with a deeper dive.

He explained that the large banks and even some of the smaller brands offered many of the small business services to their clients that his firm did – financial statement preparation and wealth management just to name two.

Like any good journalist verifying his sources, I visited the local branch of a large banking institution and snared an armful of those promotional pamphlets that banks always seem to stockpile on a rack at the entrance.

Sure enough, their offerings included such products as elder care, estate and trust planning, asset management as well as number of small business-centric financial services.

I subsequently wrote several columns about my findings and for the most part was met with some degree of derision from subscribers. “They could not possibly have the expertise that we have,” was a common thread among responses.

Okay, fast forward about a decade.

That local branch that I toured way back when now advertises a “CPA on premise (this was pre-COVID). So there went the theory about lack of an accounting pedigree.

And just recently I read where TD Bank is unveiling a service called TD Online Accounting, featuring a program offering accounting and payment services to small businesses. It will be added to their existing small business online platform and allow businesses to pay from TD Bank business checking accounts.

We’ve no doubt seen this movie before ­- from mammoth retailers like Wal-Mart offering tax prep services from H&R Block or Jackson-Hewitt, or giants like Amazon and Alibaba encroaching in the financial services sector.

Still, in most trade press articles before or since banks are rarely mentioned in the conversation about competitors to CPA firms. But far brighter minds than mine have always warned that any business that chooses to ignore threats to their growth and or survival, will quickly create client and real estate opportunities for those that do.