# Business banking for small business buyers: what AI models recommend, September 2026

Gane Index, September 2026 Edition. Asked as "business bank account for a company" and as "banking platform for a startup", six framings each, to twelve models with search on, on behalf of a small B2B company. Page: https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/treasury/business-banking/2026-09/smb

This is the permanent record of the September 2026 Edition, published September 17, 2026 and superseded since. The current standing: https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/treasury/business-banking/smb/index.md

**Standing:** Mercury leads with 33% of first choices; verdict contested. 51 first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts.

## First-choice share

| Rank | Product | Share | Negative rate | Labels |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [Mercury](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/mercury/index.md) | 33% | 14% | 50 |
| 2 | [Bluevine](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/bluevine/index.md) | 25% | 12% | 41 |
| 3 | [Novo](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/novo/index.md) | 12% | 16% | 31 |
| 4 | [Relay](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/relay/index.md) | 6% | 18% | 33 |
| 5 | [Found](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/found/index.md) | 4% | 0% | 12 |
| 6 | [Brex](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/brex/index.md) | 4% | 12% | 17 |
| 7 | [Chase Business Banking](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/chase-business-banking/index.md) | 4% | 31% | 36 |
| 8 | [Axos Bank Basic Business Checking](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/axos-bank-basic-business-checking/index.md) | 2% | 9% | 11 |
| 9 | [Rho](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/rho/index.md) | 2% | 10% | 10 |
| 63 | [Bank of America](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/bank-of-america/index.md) | 0% | 57% | 21 |
| 64 | [Wells Fargo](https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/vendors/wells-fargo/index.md) | 0% | 62% | 16 |

Rank is by share of first choices among all 64 products named; products with the same share are tied, and the order among them carries no meaning. The table lists those with at least 10 labels.

## Each model's first choice on the direct prompt

- Claude Haiku 4.5: no first choice
- GPT-5.4 mini: Bluevine; alternatives Bank of America, Chase Business Banking
- Gemini 3.5 Flash: Mercury; alternatives Airwallex, Bluevine, Chase Business Banking, Relay
- Perplexity Sonar: Bluevine; alternatives Chase Business Banking, Found, Mercury, Relay
- Grok 4.20: Bluevine; alternatives Axos Bank Basic Business Checking, Mercury, Monzo, Novo
- Mistral Small: Bluevine, Novo, Relay; alternatives Found, Mercury
- DeepSeek V4 Flash: Relay; alternatives Bluevine, Brex, Mercury
- Llama 4 Maverick: no first choice
- Qwen 3.7 Flash: Chase Business Banking; alternatives Airwallex, Bluevine, Mercury, Monzo
- Kimi K2: Mercury; alternatives Bluevine, Grasshopper, Novo
- GLM 4.7 FlashX: Bluevine, Found, Novo; alternatives Chase Business Banking, Tide, Wise Business
- MiniMax M2.5: Brex, Grasshopper; alternatives Bluevine, Novo, Ramp

## Sources the answers cite

64 of 72 answers came back with a source list, from 12 of 12 models. Sites named in the most answers:

- nerdwallet.com: 42 answers, 64 citations
- finder.com: 32 answers, 54 citations
- found.com: 30 answers, 39 citations
- handelsblatt.com: 29 answers, 31 citations
- rho.co: 26 answers, 35 citations
- airwallex.com: 25 answers, 38 citations
- relayfi.com: 22 answers, 40 citations
- bluevine.com: 22 answers, 30 citations

Pages named in the most answers:

- https://handelsblatt.com/geschaeftskonto/vergleich (29 answers)
- https://found.com/resources/business-banking/best-business-bank-accounts-small-business (28 answers)
- https://smallbusinesstools.org/guides/best-business-bank-accounts (19 answers)
- https://relayfi.com/blog/best-online-business-bank-accounts-2026-guide (18 answers)
- https://finder.com/business-banking (16 answers)
- https://nerdwallet.com/business/banking/best/types (14 answers)
- https://rho.co/blog/best-online-business-bank-accounts (13 answers)
- https://finder.com/business-banking/banks-for-small-business (12 answers)
- https://airwallex.com/en-us/blog/compare-business-bank-accounts (11 answers)
- https://airwallex.com/en-us/blog/best-banks-for-small-business (10 answers)

## Warned against

- Bank of America: 12 of 21 labels negative. "Traditional brick-and-mortar banks (Chase, BoA) | High wire fees ($25\u2013$40 each), monthly maintenance fees" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, paraphrase prompt)
- Wells Fargo: 10 of 16 labels negative. "Why to avoid: Wells Fargo has faced significant regulatory penalties and lawsuits for creating millions of unauthorized accounts and charging improper fees." (GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt)
- Mercury: 7 of 50 labels negative. "Mercury rolled out strict geographic restrictions, closing the accounts of businesses with founders holding passports from or residing in dozens of countries" (Gemini 3.5 Flash, negative prompt)
- Chase Business Banking: 11 of 36 labels negative. "Traditional brick-and-mortar banks (Chase, BoA) | High wire fees ... painful for a startup" (DeepSeek V4 Flash, paraphrase prompt)

## Record

- Method: https://www.gane.ai/index/finance/methodology
- License: CC BY 4.0. Cite as Gane Index, September 2026 Edition, www.gane.ai/index/finance.