Many niche banking initiatives rely more heavily on tailored messaging and distribution than on fundamentally differentiated financial products. But building a real growth engine requires a clean slate, a willingness to innovate at the product level, and deep research into the customers a bank wants to serve. Amber Buker, Chief Research Officer at Travillian, sits down with Mary Kate Loftus, President, Impressia Connect, CNB Bank, to break down the tactical playbook for truly serving women entrepreneurs. They unpack how to spot hidden gaps in your commercial loan book, build bespoke products like fertility financing, and scale high-touch relationships using sharp digital discipline.
For more information or to connect, reach out to Amber Buker directly at abuker@travilliangroup.com
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Episode Breakdown: Building a Niche Banking Strategy for Women Entrepreneurs
00:00: Why Niche Banking Isn’t a Branding Exercise
A lot of banks look at a niche market and see a branding exercise. The ones that build it well start from a clean slate, go deep on the customer through research and interviews, and design around needs that are genuinely specific to that population. That is the approach behind Impressia at CNB Bank, built by a leader with nearly 20 years at a global bank and a run leading digital and retail at a large national bank.
01:28: The Gap Hiding in the Commercial Loan Book
The original insight that led to Impressia predates Mary Kate’s arrival. Leadership noticed women made up a far smaller share of the commercial portfolio than men, even at a bank predominantly led by women and against a macro surge in women forming and leading businesses. That became a question rather than a campaign: if we served women better, what is the opportunity, and what could it do for local economies? Viability comes down to two tests: whether the data supports it, and whether real customers tell you that you have hit a true need.
03:17: From a Question to a Steering Committee to a Standalone Division
The work traces back to roughly 2022, when the question about how to serve women better passed from one leader to the next, ultimately pulling the heads of commercial banking and treasury into the discussion. Rather than move straight to launch, the group stepped back to weigh the quantitative and qualitative together, running professionally facilitated focus groups with women across multiple cities and stages of life. Standing up a division inside a bank means settling operations, customer experience, pricing, and product design all at once, which takes an all-hands effort. By that standard, Impressia came together quickly.
04:44: More Than Digital Banking With Marketing on Top
The cynical read on niche banking is that it is ordinary banking with marketing layered on top. What the research surfaced argues otherwise. Women consistently said they lacked the time to get educated on how to fund their businesses, and that they had built real wealth without finding anyone they trusted enough to help them plan for what came next. Those needs turned out not to be exclusive to women either — most entrepreneurs described the same gap.
06:05: Impressia Connect and the Weekly Text
Impressia Connect came directly out of that finding. A Cleveland-based team member maps what exists in the local ecosystem, and clients receive one or two texts a week with real links: a grant to apply for, an educational opportunity, a networking event. Click data shows what customers value, and that feedback loop shapes how the program evolves.
06:43: The Products No One Thinks to Build
Fertility financing is the clearest example of a product that only appears when a bank listens. Customers raised the cost and complexity of treatment, along with adoption and other paths to growing a family, as a financial issue they were struggling with. That need was reaffirmed by an advisory board member and documentary filmmaker, Robin Hauser, who flagged fertility financing while making a film on the subject. Before a product idea is implemented at Impressia, it is further validated with customers and against the market. If other banks already serve a need well, it does not move forward.
09:26: Every Client Has a Person
Relationship is the foundation of the work Impressia does, and it was established from customer number one. Every Impressia client has a named, go-to resource. To make that scale, Impressia partnered with Relay to send new clients a text-based onboarding journey, starting with a welcome and moving through the practical steps of making Impressia their primary bank — the part busy owners rarely finish on their own. Early clients were treated as founders of the brand. They received welcome boxes with books and products from women-owned businesses and handwritten notes. They had real influence over the product roadmap. That experience is now organized around three steps for every client: learn, connect, and grow.
12:10: Self-Serve Never Replaced the Relationship
The expectation was that busy customers would lean into self-service as the brand scaled. It did not happen. Demand for a real relationship held, particularly in commercial banking and lending. The conclusion is that the more people available to help clients, the better. Digital works best as reinforcement: Salesforce for relationship management, web-to-lead workflows with accountability on how fast a client hears back, and data on which offerings actually help.
14:36: Behaviors, Beliefs, and Reinforcement
Repeated behavior tends to produce belief, and results reinforce it. Sometimes the order reverses, as with an established banker recruited to open the Columbus market who believed in the mission before she learned the routines. Either way the test is the same: are we helping people, what did we learn, and did the tools deliver a better experience? That framing is also what makes failure survivable, since a pivot counts as progress rather than a loss.
16:04: A Client Base the Bank Didn’t Expect
Impressia’s clients skew younger than the rest of the bank and often arrive from big banks. The next generation treats banking as a utility unless the brand solves a real problem, and when it does, loyalty shows up as word of mouth and referrals. At the other end are older women who want to help the next generation, who walk into the office with a check and intend to tell friends and family about it. Any bank starting a niche should expect customers its brand never attracted historically, and be ready for their needs to look different.
17:47: What Bankers Should Know About Women Entrepreneurs
Impressia does not serve women exclusively, but intentionally serving them surfaced patterns worth knowing. Women entrepreneurs are stretched thin across businesses, families, boards, and community foundations, which makes the sales cycle longer and their decisions more researched and intentional. The second lesson is organizational: a targeted go-to-market works better when more bank employees are invited into it. Isolating an idea to protect it carries its own risk.
19:33: First Moves and Common Mistakes for Bank CEOs
The first move toward building a new product line or specialty business is asking the question about whether it’s needed, then handing it to people with the capacity and space to go deep on it. Talent follows from clarity about what you are trying to build. Early on there are unknowns about how to serve the client, which means the path to managing the P&L may not resemble the original plan, so flexibility matters as much as conviction. The mistake to avoid is defaulting to how it has always been done.
21:01: Going Bold, Then Going Bankwide
Impressia’s unapologetically focused market stance signaled that the bank was serious, and that clarity earned attention. The next phase of Impressia applies what was learned by extending Impressia Connect across the bank’s divisions so more employees can deliver it. Bringing more people to the table builds trust and ownership, and clear communication paired with room to adapt is what carries a change like this through.
22:38: The Closing Note
The conversation ends with where to go next: Mary Kate on LinkedIn, and Impressia Connect for anyone who wants to learn more about the team and what they are building.
