Financial institutions lose EUR 5.7 bln annually due to poor onboarding

Research has shown that financial institutions are wasting at least EUR 5.7 billion every year due to poor customer onboarding and abandonment.

The analysis by P.A.ID Strategies for Signicat shows that this year’s report was the worst for the industry since it debuted in 2016, with 63% of consumers in Europe abandoning financial applications in 2020. This is a sharp increase of 23% from the abandonment rate in 2019. 

By making conservative estimates of the cost of customer acquisition including advertising, sponsorship and promotion, personnel wages, and customer support and allowing for multiple applications by the same person, the research conservatively estimates that at least EUR 5.7 billion is wasted each year. 

Commissioned by Signicat, the Battle to Onboard survey was conducted by Sapio Research in 2020 and consisted of an online questionnaire completed by 4500 adults with a bank account, credit card and an insurance policy; 1,000 in the UK and 500 in each of Belgium, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, and the Netherlands.