Why operational leaders are rethinking KYC

Operational leaders face a stark reality: the onboarding experience has become a make-or-break moment not just for clients but also for the bank itself.

Despite significant investment in transformation, many banks continue to struggle with outdated, manual Know Your Customer (KYC) processes that are fundamentally unfit for purpose. The result? Delayed revenue, rising costs, compliance exposure, and lost market opportunity.

At Encompass, we work alongside global banks every day, and we see the same challenge repeated: how do you scale intelligently, stay compliant, and improve customer experience - all at once?

The answer lies in automation and Corporate Digital Identity (CDI). And for operational leaders, the opportunity has never been more urgent, or more valuable.

Time to revenue is time to market share

Speed is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s a strategic differentiator.

Banks are spending an average of 90 -120 days onboarding a single corporate client. With over 50 hours of manual effort required per case. That is time your competitors are using to deliver value, deepen relationships, and capture market share.

By automating data and document collection, banks can reduce onboarding times dramatically. One Tier 1 bank, working with Encompass, cut their KYC cycle from days to just hours. The impact? Faster time to revenue, greater commercial agility, and a significantly improved client experience.

Robust compliance – without the resource drain

In regulated environments, compliance must be non-negotiable, but it needn’t be inefficient.

A robust, automated process ensures consistency, transparency, and auditability. It removes reliance on manual checks, reduces errors, and delivers right-first-time outcomes. With CDI at the core, banks can reuse verified data across onboarding, refresh, remediation, and perpetual KYC. Ensuring compliance that is not only rigorous, but also resource-efficient.

This is how operations leaders gain control, reduce rework, and drive down risk. All while delivering a stronger, more trusted compliance framework.

Scale efficiently and reduce total cost of ownership

Growth must be sustainable. Yet legacy models often force banks to scale by increasing headcount or outsourcing which are both costly and inefficient.

With Encompass, you can scale without adding operational overhead. Our platform delivers end-to-end automation, integrates seamlessly with your existing systems, and supports reusability of data across the full client lifecycle.

The result? Up to 59% operational efficiency gains over five years, and a 21% cost reduction in Year 1 alone.

The strategic imperative for Operations leaders

The onboarding experience has become a critical lever for competitive advantage. But for too long, it's been a drag on performance, cost, and client trust.

As a senior executive team member at Encompass, I believe the future belongs to banks that treat onboarding not as a compliance obligation, but as a strategic opportunity.

By embracing automation and Corporate Digital Identity, Heads of Operations can unlock a new operating model: one that is faster, smarter, and built to scale. The case for change is clear. And the time is now.

Let’s move from bottleneck to breakthrough - together