Ask a financial services firm why onboarding takes as long as it does and the answer is usually the client, or the checks. Watch it happen and the answer is more often the firm: the evidence for one client ends up in an email folder, a shared drive, a spreadsheet and a system, and every subsequent question about that client requires visiting all four. Consolidating where records sit typically shortens onboarding more than automating any individual step, and it costs nothing but a decision.
Four places is the normal starting position
Correspondence lives in email. Documents live on a drive. Progress lives in a spreadsheet somebody maintains. Client details live in a system. None of them is wrong on its own, and together they mean that answering where are we up to with this client requires four lookups by somebody who knows all four. That person becomes a bottleneck, and the bottleneck is invisible because it looks like ordinary work.
Pick one place for state, one for evidence
State is where the client is: which steps are done, what is outstanding, who is waiting on whom. Evidence is what was relied on: the documents, dates and conclusions. Both belong on the client record. Correspondence can stay in email provided nothing important lives only there, which in practice means anything decided in an email gets recorded on the record as a fact rather than as an attachment.
Then measure the waits, not the steps
Once the record is one place, you can see for the first time where onboarding actually spends its time, and it is almost always in one or two waits on the client rather than across the checks. That is worth knowing before buying anything, because it points at reminders and clearer asks, which are cheap, rather than at process automation, which is not. What the checks must be remains a matter for your regulator and your own adviser.
Questions people ask about financial services client onboarding
How long should financial services client onboarding take?
It varies by firm and by client type, and the useful measure is your own baseline rather than a benchmark. Instrument a handful of onboardings and you will find most of the elapsed time in one or two waits.
Can onboarding be fully digital?
Much of it can, and completion rates usually improve when clients can respond in short pieces over several days rather than in one long session. What is acceptable in your jurisdiction is a question for your own adviser.
Who should own onboarding in a financial services firm?
One named person for the process, distinct from whoever performs individual checks. Processes without an owner stall at the handovers, which is where most of the elapsed time hides.