Commercial and corporate banking is at a pivotal crossroads. As the sector eyes a projected £3 trillion in global revenues by 2026, the race to capture market share is intensifying—and the battleground is client onboarding. For too long, onboarding in commercial banking has been a source of friction, delay, and lost opportunity. But a new era is emerging, led by fintechs and digital challengers who have redefined what’s possible. Incumbent banks now have a clear blueprint to follow, leveraging composable, modular engagement platforms, automation, AI, and best-of-breed partnerships to transform onboarding from a barrier into a competitive advantage.
Unlike retail banking, commercial and corporate banking deals with high-value, high-complexity relationships. Clients often span multiple entities, geographies, and industries, with intricate ownership structures and regulatory requirements. Onboarding a new client is rarely a single-user journey; it involves multiple stakeholders, extensive documentation, and rigorous Know Your Customer (KYC) and Anti-Money Laundering (AML) checks. For many banks, this process can take anywhere from seven to 42 days—an eternity in today’s digital economy. The stakes are high: 67% of commercial clients cite onboarding and KYC as the biggest barriers to switching banks, and more than half are actively reviewing their banking relationships. The result? Banks lose billions in potential revenue each year due to onboarding friction.
Fintech challengers have rewritten the rules. By digitizing customer journeys, reimagining colleague interventions, updating policies, and modernizing legacy systems, they have slashed onboarding times from weeks to as little as two to 48 hours. The impact is profound:
Fintechs achieve this by leveraging composable, modular engagement platforms built on microservices—discrete, loosely coupled components that can be rapidly assembled, replaced, or scaled as needed. This approach enables:
Traditional banks have long struggled with monolithic, inflexible systems that mirror their own organizational silos. This rigidity makes it difficult to personalize journeys, adapt to new regulations, or integrate innovative third-party solutions. In contrast, composable architectures—underpinned by microservices and event-driven orchestration—allow banks to:
This modularity is not just a technical advantage; it’s a strategic imperative. Banks can focus on differentiating capabilities—such as personalized onboarding or advanced risk assessment—while leveraging external partners for commoditized services. The result is faster time-to-market, lower costs, and a platform that evolves with client needs.
A modern, composable onboarding solution for commercial banking is designed around four key stages:
For standard cases, onboarding can be completed in as little as five to ten minutes. Even for complex, multi-entity clients, the process is reduced to hours rather than weeks. This north-star vision supports both self-service journeys for business banking and SME clients, and RM-initiated journeys for higher-end SME and corporate clients.
Modern engagement platforms are not just about client-facing journeys. They also empower bank employees—RMs, compliance officers, and operations teams—with a unified view of the client, streamlined workflows, and AI-driven insights. By breaking down data silos and enabling real-time collaboration, banks can:
A composable data architecture—often leveraging a data mesh approach—ensures that data is accessible, secure, and actionable across the organization. This is critical for delivering hyper-personalized experiences and meeting evolving regulatory requirements.
To compete with fintechs and digital challengers, incumbent banks must embrace a holistic transformation across technology, process, and organization:
The future of commercial banking is being written today. Those who act now—rethinking their engagement platforms and onboarding journeys—will not just participate in the sector’s growth; they will lead it. By embracing composable architectures, automation, AI, and fintech partnerships, incumbent banks can transform onboarding from a pain point into a source of competitive advantage, unlocking new growth opportunities and delivering the seamless experiences clients now expect.
Connect with Publicis Sapient to explore how your institution can embark on this transformative journey and redefine what’s possible in commercial banking.