Agentic AI Onboarding: Financial Providers Ready While Consumers Hesitate

Signicat, a Norway-based European provider of digital identity and fraud prevention services, has published a report on agentic AI in financial onboarding. The company offers a platform combining electronic identities, document verification and authentication, and is owned by the private equity investor Nordic Capital. The report's headline finding is that financial providers are ready for AI-led onboarding while consumers are hesitant.

Onboarding friction remains a persistent problem across Europe. 60% of consumers say they abandoned an online financial application within the last year. That is only a slight improvement on 68% in 2022. The main reasons people give for dropping out are excessive requests for information and processes that take too long.

Resistance to AI-led onboarding is strongest in the digitally advanced Nordic markets. The report singles out Norway, where 79% of consumers are cited in this context, though the available text cuts off before saying what that figure measures.

The picture is a gap between supply and demand. Providers are prepared to use AI agents to streamline sign-up, an area where abandonment remains high, but many customers, especially in the Nordics, are not yet comfortable with the idea. For banks and fintechs in the region, that suggests that reducing friction through automation will depend on winning consumer trust as well as on the technology.