Today, every retail and commercial bank has digitalization as a priority – and now COVID-19 has pushed it even higher up the agenda, acting as a powerful catalyst accelerating banks’ digitalization programs. In no area are the impacts of digital more dramatic or far-reaching than around the customer onboarding journey.

The traditional onboarding process for incumbent banks before we entered the post-pandemic “new normal” is illustrated in this wihte paper. The physical branch presence was a must, providing a venue where the customer could go for a face-to-face meeting with bank staff before submitting documents in physical form. The customer’s application would then go into the internal approval cycle – which might take days. The go-ahead enabled onboarding of the customer for a product such as debit card, credit card or loan.