The onboarding process — understood as the moment when a new customer is formally registered — is one of the most critical stages for any company. After investing time and resources in marketing and sales, onboarding represents the point where all those efforts come together and the customer relationship truly begins.
In the financial sector, this moment is especially relevant. For banks and financial institutions, the onboarding process usually culminates in the opening of a new account or the activation of a financial product.
By that point, customers already have clear expectations about the service they will receive and the type of relationship they will have with the chosen institution.
Optimising the onboarding process is precisely about meeting those expectations. A well‑designed onboarding experience helps build trust from the very beginning and lays the foundations for a long‑term, stable and mutually beneficial relationship.
One of the main challenges in client onboarding for financial services is finding the right balance between regulatory requirements and a smooth client experience. Optimisation is not about reducing controls, but about removing unnecessary friction without compromising compliance.
In this article, we look at five fundamental practices to optimise client onboarding processes in banks and financial institutions.
What is client onboarding in financial services?
Client onboarding in financial services covers all the steps required to bring a new client into an organisation in a secure and compliant way. This usually includes data collection, identity verification, documentation, contract signing and account activation.
Today, optimising client onboarding in financial services almost always means moving towards digital‑first processes. Digital client onboarding combines secure identity verification, online documentation and automated workflows to speed up onboarding while maintaining full regulatory control.
How to optimize the onboarding process for a bank or financial entity?
In practice, client onboarding in financial services is an end‑to‑end process. From the moment a customer decides to contract a product until their account is fully operational, every step needs to work together seamlessly. Optimisation means ensuring continuity across the entire journey, not just improving individual touchpoints.
1. Offer an authentic multi-channel experience
Registering with a bank or a financial services provider can take place through different channels: online, via mobile apps or in a physical branch.
Regardless of the channel chosen, customers should be able to start the onboarding process in one place and continue it later in another, without having to repeat steps or provide the same information again.
This flexibility is what customers often perceive as convenience. The onboarding process should adapt to their needs, allowing them to complete it where, when and how it suits them best—whether digitally or in person.
What is onboarding?
“Onboarding is actually the phase a customer goes through in between making the decision they want to use a product and being a fully setup user who can extract the most value from the product. In short, it’s about helping your customers be successful.”
Source: Intercom on Onboarding
2. Design fast and easy-to-complete forms
The onboarding experience must be simple, intuitive and visually clear. Above all, it needs to be fast. Today’s customers are used to immediacy, and this expectation also applies to financial services.
When someone decides to open an account or sign up for a financial product, they expect the process to be quick and secure. Long or complex forms increase friction and significantly raise the risk of abandonment.
For this reason, registration forms should only request essential information at the initial stage. Additional data can be collected later, once onboarding is complete. This approach, often referred to as progressive profiling, helps speed up registration while keeping the process user‑friendly.
3. Provide support throughout the entire onboarding process
Customer support plays a key role during onboarding. Future clients may have questions or encounter difficulties at any stage of the process, and timely assistance can make the difference between completion and abandonment.
Support can take different forms: chatbots for immediate responses, live chat with support agents, phone assistance, email support or even help through social media channels. What matters most is making help easily accessible when it is needed.
In addition, collecting data generated during the onboarding process is extremely valuable. Understanding how long onboarding takes or identifying where users tend to drop off provides insights that can be used to continuously improve the experience.
Tools such as heatmaps can also help analyse how users interact with forms, revealing friction points and opportunities to increase completion rates.
4. Incorporate online identity verification systems
In the financial sector, onboarding cannot be completed without properly verifying a client’s identity. This makes online identity verification systems a critical part of the process.
These systems need to be fast, intuitive and legally compliant, while also meeting strict requirements around data security and personal data protection. When implemented correctly, online identity verification allows onboarding to remain fully digital, without requiring customers to visit a branch.
For many users—especially younger generations—the possibility of completing onboarding entirely online is no longer a nice‑to‑have but an expectation.
5. Digitise documentation and contract signing
Documentation is at the core of client onboarding in financial services. Contracts, disclosures and consent forms are essential, but they are also one of the main sources of delay and friction.
Digitising document management and contract signing allows onboarding processes to move forward without relying on paper, physical meetings or manual follow‑ups. Clients can review and sign documents remotely, while financial institutions retain full traceability and legal certainty.
In a highly regulated environment, digital document workflows help reduce errors, speed up onboarding cycles and improve both compliance and client experience at the same time.
FAQ
How can financial institutions leverage client onboarding with Signaturit?
Signaturit provides advanced electronic signature solutions that help financial institutions optimise client onboarding while meeting European regulatory requirements.
Our solution allows customers to verify their identity online using biometric data such as signing speed, acceleration and pressure, combined with geolocation, device information and IP address. This makes it possible to uniquely identify the signer in a secure and legally valid way, in full compliance with Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services.
For organisations that need to integrate electronic signatures directly into their systems, Signaturit also offers API‑based integration options.
Final perspective: onboarding as a competitive advantage
In a highly competitive and regulated market, client onboarding is no longer just an operational requirement. It is one of the first opportunities financial institutions have to demonstrate reliability, professionalism and trust.
When onboarding works well, it sets the tone for the entire client relationship and becomes a true differentiator.
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