# The Credit Process Was Never the Hard Part _Published: 2026-09-03T00:00:00.000-04:00_ Across Southeast Asia, demand is rising and complexity is the real constraint. Learn how leaders simplify the full credit lifecycle, on their terms. _Written by Anthony Morris, Chief Industry Transformation Officer, nCino_ After 30 years of travelling to more than 60 countries and working with 500-plus banks, I’ve learned to trust one pattern: the credit process itself barely changes from one market to the next. A customer arrives with a need and expects to be funded through a clear, straightforward journey. That expectation holds true in Ho Chi Minh City to Auckland, Sydney to Tokyo, and further across the globe. APAC as a whole is having a genuine growth moment. Asia's corporate and investment banking revenue already tops US$1.4 trillion, roughly half the global total, and is projected to grow about 7% a year through 2027, faster than any other region, [according to McKinsey](https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/financial-services/our-insights/banking-matters/trends-and-opportunities-shaping-corporate-and-investment-banking-in-asia). Small and medium enterprises, the region's largest client base at close to half of transaction-banking revenue, are maturing into more sophisticated credit needs. In the Philippines, bank lending grew 11.4% year over year in April 2026, its fastest pace in nine months, according to the [Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas](https://bworldonline.com/top-stories/2026/06/08/755061/april-bank-lending-growth-fastest-in-9-mos/) (BSP). Yet the region's small businesses remain underserved. As of late 2025, MSME loans made up [less than 5% of Philippine banks’ loan book](https://bworldonline.com/banking-finance/2026/03/16/736378/banks-urged-to-use-tech-to-expand-msme-lending/), even as lenders were urged to adopt technology that can read the informal records these businesses actually keep. It’s the same in every market: a large, maturing base of businesses that need credit delivered simply and at speed. For the established banks across Southeast Asia, that’s the case I want to make. Because the credit process is so consistent across all these markets and sizes, the path to simplifying it is already proven. It’s not an experiment. Across nCino’s 2,700 global customers, the ones that have simplified their credit lifecycle have already shown where it leads. ## **The real constraint is decades of accumulated complexity** In almost every case the constraint is internal, and it’s almost always the same: decades of accumulated complexity. Most mature banks are over-architected for complexity they no longer need. Processes are rigid, siloed, outdated, or strung together by limited modern infrastructure. Some of the most skilled people in the organisation spend their days as human integrators, rekeying data and chasing approvals by email across departments. Look beneath the surface of almost any established lender and you see it. The customer gets a clean, modern façade but behind it sits multiple systems, too much manual handoff, and too little connectivity. The cost shows up as more than slower origination. It surfaces as fragmented risk and governance visibility across the lifecycle, often exactly when a credit committee wants a single, current view. None of this is inherent to your institution. The complexity built up over years, one system and one workaround at a time. It can be collapsed just as deliberately, in the order you choose. ## **Simplification is a proven pathway, not an experiment** I’ve watched this pathway travelled by institutions of every size, from the largest global banks to the smallest community lenders. In each case, the move was the same: consolidate the full credit lifecycle onto one purpose-built platform, from onboarding through underwriting and fulfilment to account creation on the core, across any product line, segment, and persona. At nCino, the intelligence behind that work is informed by 14 years of banking context, which is why it mirrors how credit actually works in practice. Let me be clear about what this doesn’t require, because this is where cautious leaders rightly push back. You don’t have to move every product line and segment at once. The platform accounts for the full variety of your business. You choose what to simplify, and in what order. This is the off-ramp from the complexity of the past. It’s a change in the question you ask, away from a feature-by-feature "do we need another point solution?" and toward transformation at the scale of the whole platform. And because local regulatory, documentation, and segment nuances are configured through clicks rather than code, adapting to your market is a business-analyst task, not a rebuild. **Legacy point-solution thinking** **Platform simplification** **The question asked** What feature or function do we need next? What strategy do we want the platform to mirror? **Unit of decision** One tool, one process, one gap at a time The lifecycle, sequenced on your terms **Local nuance** A new integration or customisation each time Configured through clicks, not code **Over time** One more system on the map; complexity compounds Complexity collapses; the map simplifies **Risk and data view** Fragmented across silos Connected across the full lifecycle For your own institution, that means simplifying step by step, without the sweeping replacement that has stalled so many institutions before. ## **One platform, on your terms: from straight-through to high-touch** Simplifying doesn’t mean forcing every customer down the same automated path. In fact, one platform lets you match the engagement model to the risk in front of you, and that optionality is what makes the move safe for a careful leader. In ASEAN, [SMEs make up the majority of the private sector](https://www.weforum.org/stories/financial-and-monetary-systems/digital-finance-gap-support-smes-asean/), and there’s no one right way to serve them: a digital-first seller who qualifies on real-time transaction data needs a very different path from an established firm with strong contracts but no digital trail. Meeting each where they are is what matters. At one end, a known, low-risk customer asking for additional funds can run straight through, from request to funds in under a day where your policies allow it. A moderate-risk request gets part-automated handling, with a banker on the decisions that matter. A complex structured corporate deal stays firmly human-led, with the platform doing the assembly and legwork so your team spends its time on judgement, structuring, and negotiation. There’s no right or wrong model here. Digital self-service, banker-led, back-office, or a blend across the digital divide, you deploy each to fit the segment. In the institutions I’ve watched make this move, complex cases that once took months have come back in weeks, and SME lending that ran to weeks now turns around in days. Every institution is different, so treat that as what is possible, not a promise. What matters is that all three are on one platform, governed the same way, with a single view of risk. ## **Where AI fits, and where your people stay in control** AI has a specific job in all this, and a clear limit. It takes on the redundant, multi-step work that consumes your best people: assembling a credit deal, pulling together the financial analysis, structuring and interpreting documents so the data operates in context. What AI doesn’t do is make the decision. Your people make and own every credit call, verify the outputs, and can see how each was produced. There’s no autonomous credit decisioning. This is already the direction in the region. [Lenders in the Philippines specifically are being urged to deploy AI](https://bworldonline.com/banking-finance/2026/03/16/736378/banks-urged-to-use-tech-to-expand-msme-lending/) that can read the handwritten and non-standard records many small businesses keep, turning them into data a credit team can assess, with the analyst still making the call. Any institution can buy the same AI models; what they can’t buy is 14 years of banking context. Our intelligence is grounded in exactly that, so it recognises what a covenant breach or a healthy spread looks like in practice. That banking context is what does the work here. Consider credit monitoring. Context-aware agents built on your institutional data can do the background, surfacing where risk and growth sit at portfolio and individual level, with your people firmly in the loop. Expectation, though, is outpacing action: [Cornerstone Advisors' 2026 research report](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cornerstone-advisors-releases-2026-commercial-lending-outlook-302724603.html) found nearly 60% of bankers expect AI to have a moderate-to-strong impact on underwriting and lending, yet adoption across institutions remains limited. [nCino's AI in Banking Benchmark](https://www.ncino.com/blog/ncino-ai-in-banking-benchmark-2026) points the same way, with 84% of surveyed senior banking leaders saying AI has already changed how most banking roles operate. The challenge now is turning that intent into everyday practice. ## **Leadership is the common thread** If there’s one thing that separates the institutions that succeed at this from the ones that stall, it’s not the technology. Every one of them had access to the same tools and AI is only the latest of them. [Cornerstone Advisors’ 2026 report](https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/cornerstone-advisors-releases-2026-commercial-lending-outlook-302724603.html) found that more than 70% of institutions saw little to no improvement in loan production despite their investment in CRM systems. Buying a tool isn’t the same as changing an outcome. What set the winners apart was leadership: a clear vision, the discipline to prioritise, a genuine commitment to rationalising systems, and the will to bring their people on the journey. Put your people at the centre of it, not as an afterthought. The goal is to free skilled staff from integrator work so they have time to do the judgement work that only they can do. I’ve watched this play out for our customers across markets: - In Australia, [Bendigo Bank](https://www.ncino.com/blog/bendigo-bank-achieves-record-breaking-digital-transformation) consolidated more than 30 forms and systems onto the nCino Platform in 13 months, merging two divisions its leadership had run like separate banks. - In the Nordics, [DNB](https://www.ncino.com/news/dnb-selects-ncino-modernise-corporate-lending-nordics), Norway's largest bank, went live on the nCino Platform to modernise the core credit systems behind its corporate lending, a strong foundation it's extending to SME lending next and rolling out across nine countries. - In Japan, [Tokushima Taisho Bank](https://www.ncino.com/news/wells-fargo-selects-ncino-enhance-commercial-banking-lending) chose nCino to bring its business lending onto one system and free its bankers from manual work to focus on client relationships. Each bank brought its systems together, put its data to work, and freed its people to focus on customers, all while making hard calls with rigour. The ambition exists more broadly, but so does a gap: in [nCino’s benchmark](https://www.ncino.com/blog/ncino-ai-in-banking-benchmark-2026), 91% of institutions have an AI strategy, yet 81% are prioritising adoption over return, and only 21% tie it to revenue. That gap is a leadership opportunity, not a technology problem. ## **Start with the strategy, not the software** Here’s the question that matters for any leader: can your platform become the mirror for the strategy you actually want? You keep control of the sequence. You keep your people. And you collapse the complexity on your own terms, from straight-through to high-touch, with leadership setting the pace. The banks that have already taken this path began with a decision, and the confidence to bring their people with them. The growth moment ahead is real, and so is the chance to meet it as a simpler, clearer version of your institution, with the same people who got you here finally freed to do their best work. You already have what you need to begin. The rest is a decision only you can make. --- [View sitemap](https://www.ncino.com/api/markdown/sitemap)