Slow identity checks in onboarding: what IAM teams should fix

TL;DR: Fenergo says 70% of financial institutions lost clients in 2025 because onboarding was too slow, while manual verification can take days and error rates can reach 26%, turning identity checks into a direct conversion and compliance problem. The practical answer is not weaker assurance but faster, automated verification that reduces friction without relaxing controls.

NHIMG editorial — based on content published by 1Kosmos: a guide to speeding up customer onboarding with automated identity verification

By the numbers:

• 70% of financial institutions in 2025 lost clients because of slow and inefficient onboarding processes.
• Human verification has failure rates up to 26%, so each manual review step adds both delay and error risk.

Questions worth separating out

Q: How should organisations speed up customer onboarding without weakening identity assurance?

A: They should automate the primary verification path and reserve manual review for exceptions.

Q: Why do manual onboarding processes create more risk as volumes grow?

A: Manual processes create delay, and delay creates abandonment, rework, and inconsistent decisions.

Q: What signals show that onboarding controls are not working well enough?

A: High drop-off rates, long review queues, frequent document rechecks, and repeated data mismatches are the clearest warning signs.

Practitioner guidance

• Map every onboarding handoff Trace where identity data moves from document capture to verification, review, and account creation.
• Use automated checks for the primary path Reserve human review for exceptions and route standard applicants through automated document validation, liveness detection, and authoritative data lookup first.
• Measure abandonment by verification step Track completion rates, review times, and failure points at each onboarding stage so you can see which control is creating friction and where applicants are dropping out.

What's in the full article

1Kosmos's full blog post covers the operational detail this post intentionally leaves for the source:

• The document verification workflow details that show how the platform scans, extracts, and validates identity evidence in real time.
• The biometric and liveness verification steps that explain how proof of presence is established during onboarding.
• The integration options and API details that matter when teams need to embed verification into existing customer journeys.
• The compliance and storage claims that implementation teams may need to review alongside internal legal and privacy requirements.

👉 Read 1Kosmos's analysis of faster identity verification for customer onboarding →

Slow identity checks in onboarding: what IAM teams should fix?

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