60 Minutes That Could Transform Your Commercial Banking Strategy
We recently partnered with Celent to identify common challenges in commercial banking onboarding. The numbers reveal a stark reality: the average commercial onboarding process takes 49 days, with document collection causing 79% of abandonment cases and 31% of operations remaining manual.
These aren't just statistics. They represent lost revenue, frustrated relationship managers, and clients who walk away before even becoming customers.
If your institution identifies with any of these challenges, you're likely weighing whether a product demo is worth your time. Here's exactly what you'll see in 60 minutes with nCino's commercial onboarding solution—and why this investment of time could reshape how your institution serves commercial clients.
The goal of an nCino demo is straightforward: show you real capabilities that address specific challenges. While we use a standard product demonstration rather than your institution's data, we tailor the focus areas to align with your evaluation priorities. This approach lets you see the product as it actually functions, then have an informed conversation about how it would work in your environment. Think of it as test-driving a car with standard features before discussing customization. You need to understand what the vehicle can do before deciding how to configure it for your needs. Customization happens during implementation, not in the sales process.
The demo highlights capabilities most relevant to your evaluation needs, directly connecting to the pain points identified our research. Here's what we can demonstrate across four critical areas:
Client-led digital experiences that put borrowers in control
Easy related party collaboration for complex ownership structures
Comprehensive KYC and KYB processes
Bulk account fulfillment for multiple-product relationships
Our research identified document collection as the top abandonment point in commercial onboarding. When clients face endless email chains and repeated information requests, they simply stop responding.
With the right tool, however, multi-entity borrowers can navigate document submission across multiple related parties, with the system tracking completion status and automatically notifying the right people at the right time.
Capabilities available to demonstrate:
Integration with identity verification services like Alloy
Real-time verification as information is entered
Automatic flagging of potential compliance issues
Consolidated view of compliance status across all parties
The Celent research highlighted KYC/KYB processes as both an abandonment point and a source of data fragmentation. When compliance reviews happen in separate systems with manual hand-offs, deals stall. What if, instead, verification was happening in real time as client information is entered, with instant feedback on compliance status rather than waiting days or weeks for manual review?
Capabilities available to demonstrate:
Visual ownership structure mapping
Automatic calculation of ownership percentages
Personalized workflows for each owner based on their stake
Integration with document collection tied to ownership roles
Complex ownership structures create bottlenecks that frustrate both relationship managers and clients. The Celent research found this to be a significant source of delays and RM frustration. But with a multi-tiered entity structure visualized clearly, automatic calculations of ownership percentages and personalized owner flow eliminates confusion about who needs to do what.
Capabilities available to demonstrate:
Single workflow that adapts to any product type
Pre-populated data for existing clients
Relationship import from core systems
Product-specific requirements automatically applied
Our study with Celent documented how redundant information gathering across products creates friction. Clients shouldn't have to provide the same information multiple times. Instead, existing clients should be able to add services without starting over, providing only what's changed or specific to what they're adding.
These challenges aren't unique to your institution—they're universal across commercial banking. Document abandonment, compliance delays, ownership structure complexity, and redundant data gathering affect banks regardless of size or market. Seeing product capabilities as they are, rather than customized for your specific scenario, gives you a clearer picture of what you're actually evaluating. You can assess whether the core functionality solves your problems, then discuss how it would integrate with your specific systems and processes.
Bring together operations leadership to evaluate efficiency gains, digital and technology leaders to assess integration and experience quality, and frontline relationship managers to provide perspective on client usability.
How does the platform handle exceptions that fall outside standard workflows? Your competitive advantage often lives in handling complex deals that other banks can't—so you need a system that accommodates exceptions without breaking your process.
What does the implementation timeline look like for an institution of our size? Every day you delay digital transformation is a day your competitors gain ground, so understanding realistic timelines helps you plan for when you'll start seeing ROI.
How does the solution integrate with our existing core banking system and other technology? The last thing you need is another siloed system—integration determines whether this becomes part of your infrastructure or just another vendor to manage.
What level of configuration can we manage internally versus requiring vendor support? Your business changes constantly, and waiting weeks for vendor updates to adjust lending criteria or workflows means missed opportunities and frustrated relationship managers.
How do you measure and track the improvements clients see after implementation? Without clear metrics tied to efficiency gains, revenue growth, or risk reduction, you can't justify the investment to your board or prove the business case.
Does it address the specific abandonment points we're seeing in our onboarding process? Every commercial client who drops out mid-application represents lost revenue and relationship potential, so you need solutions that fix your actual bottlenecks.
Can you see how it would reduce the manual work currently required from your team? Your lenders and operations staff are drowning in administrative tasks instead of building relationships and closing deals—technology should free them to focus on what drives revenue.
Does the client experience match the digital expectations of your commercial borrowers? Your commercial clients run digitally sophisticated businesses themselves, and if your banking experience feels decades behind what they use daily, they'll find someone who gets it.
Can you envision your relationship managers actually using this in their daily work? The best technology in the world is worthless if your team won't adopt it—you need tools that fit naturally into how your bankers actually work, not systems that fight them.
The 49-day onboarding timeline and 79% document abandonment rate documented by Celent aren't inevitable. Banks using modern onboarding technology have demonstrated they can complete complex commercial onboarding in days rather than weeks while dramatically improving completion rates.
A 60-minute demo shows you exactly how that transformation happens—from document collection to compliance verification to final account opening. You'll see real capabilities solving real problems, then have a substantive conversation about how it would work in your institution. The question isn't whether commercial onboarding needs to improve. The question is whether you'll invest 60 minutes to see how.
This analysis is based on Celent's Global Commercial Banking Onboarding Survey 2025, surveying 409 banking professionals across North America, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific, representing financial institutions ranging from $10 billion to $500 billion+ in assets.
Commercial clients bring tremendous value to financial institutions through larger loans, deposits, and richer treasury services. Capturing all of that data, however, is time-consuming and often inefficient.
Community and regional banks face an impossible choice—speed up your onboarding to compete with big banks or maintain the personal relationships that define your competitive edge.
Leading banks spend millions every year on commercial onboarding—until they discover how to transform this cost into accelerated revenue.
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