European financial institutions are losing 38 per cent of applicants during the digital onboarding process, a study from Signicat reveals.
Coming from the third edition of Signicat’s The Battle to On-board III, the number of abandoned online applications has dropped from last year when 52 per cent were abandoned. The study was comprised of 3,500 adults across Finland, Germany, The Netherlands, Norway, the UK and Sweden on their digital onboarding experience with retail bank accounts, credit cards and insurance.
While a significant amount of investment is being putting into easing the burden of onboarding, consumers are still finding the ordeal tough. Online applications are required for KYC and AML checks and this needs personal information to be shared with an institution and an identity to be proven.
In 2016, 13 per cent of respondents claimed the onboarding process was difficult and painful. This rose to 32 per cent in 2017 and 2018. However, this number has dropped down to 24 per cent of respondents claiming the process was tough to complete.
Signicat claims the issue has become prevalent because while investment is improving the onboarding process, consumer expectations have grown in parallel.
Celent senior analyst Zilvinas Bareisis said, “While digital identity plays an important role in improving onboarding, it is not enough. Even in countries that do have established digital identity schemes, such as Norway, consumers still often abandon the process.
“Our advice to financial institutions looking to improve customer account opening experience is to think across all steps in the process – from discovery and data capture to giving customers clear value from the new account. Only then can they hope to reduce the abandonment rates and increase the number of people that become customers.”
Signicat, which designs digital identity and electronic signature technology, claims digital identity can lower burdens of onboarding. The company said that in countries with high digital identity adoption rates such as Sweden (91%) and Norway (81%), on-boarding takes less time.
Earlier in the year, Verimi and Signicat formed a partnership to provide a multi-factor identification and authentication solution. Through the deal, Verimi will integrate its identification platform into Signicat’s digital identity hub.
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