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The financial sector is in a constant state of transformation. The confluence of accelerated digitalization, new consumer demands and an increasingly demanding regulatory environment has created a completely new playing field. In this context, digital onboarding has become a strategic battleground for banks, insurers and FinTech companies. However, customer onboarding processes still face numerous challenges, especially when seeking to comply with KYC and AML regulatory requirements.
In the midst of this revolution, disruptive business models are emerging that challenge the status quo. One of the most notable examples on the Spanish scene is the alliance between Pensumo and Ibercaja. This project not only introduces an innovative pension savings system based on daily consumption, but also represents a paradigmatic case study on how a state-of-the-art digital onboarding process can be the catalyst for the success of a complex financial product.
Current challenges in customer registration processes in the financial sector
In 2024, with a global RegTech market valued at $16.2 billion according to a Deloitte study, efficiency in onboarding processes has become the mainstay of financial products. The customer onboarding process has gone from being a mere administrative formality to becoming a moment of truth for any financial institution.
In the physical world, this process was plagued by paperwork, branch visits and long wait times. Digital banking promised to remove these barriers, but reality has shown that the digitization of onboarding brings its own set of monumental challenges. Financial institutions have been struggling for years with these processes that, in many cases, still present a poor user experience, as well as operational and legal risks. The most relevant challenges include:
- Fraud and identity theft: The rise of techniques such as synthetic identity theft, deepfakes and spoofing has increased the sophistication of attacks. Entities must implement real-time document verification systems and fraud detection tools based on artificial intelligence to mitigate risks.
- Friction in the registration process: 68% of users abandon financial registration processes due to complexity. The need was clear: to offer a fast, fluid experience that would transmit confidence from the first click.
- Mobile device security: With the growth in the use of mobile banking, threats such as phishing, smishing and device hijacking are emerging. Biometric authentication, although convenient, must be implemented in a robust way to avoid vulnerabilities.
Ultimately, the challenges of digital onboarding in the financial sector converge at a critical point: the need to balance robust security and strict regulatory compliance with a user experience that is agile, intuitive and frictionless. Overcoming this crossroads is not just an operational improvement, but a strategic imperative to engage and retain the customer in the digital age, transforming a potential abandonment point into the first pillar of a long-term relationship of trust.
The Pensumo-Ibercaja challenge: how last-gen onboarding boosted a disruptive product
Pension by Consumption, promoted by Pensumo and Ibercaja, represents a significant breakthrough in the FinTech sector, combining a revolutionary savings model with state-of-the-art digital onboarding that integrates advanced KYC/AML. Thanks to this proposal, every daily purchase becomes a contribution to the pension plan with no set-up costs, immediate activation and a 100% digital process. This disruptive approach not only unlocks new loyalty opportunities, but redefines the way consumers interact with retirement savings.
To solve these challenges, Pensumo and Ibercaja opted for an advanced RegTech solution from Tecalis. Based on the premise of generating a pension by consumption, Pensumo allows citizens to generate contributions to a pension plan simply by making everyday purchases. This technology integration was key to articulating a digital onboarding experience that complied with the strictest legal requirements while offering a user-centric interface.
The disruptive nature of Pensumo posed unique technical challenges that required innovative solutions in the onboarding process. The "Pension by Consumption" model needed a system that could handle multiple data streams in real time: purchase transactions, reward calculations, pension plan contributions, and continuous verification of user identity. The technical architecture had to be robust enough to handle these complex processes while maintaining a smooth and intuitive user experience.
In addition, being a long-term savings product managed by Ibercaja, the process had to comply with the same KYC/AML regulatory standards as opening a current account or taking out a mutual fund. This is where state-of-the-art onboarding became the strategic pillar of the project. The challenge was daunting and manifested itself on the three classic fronts of digital onboarding.
Common challenges: friction, abandonment and fraud in digital onboarding
- Friction and User Experience (UX): Pensumo's target audience is broad and not necessarily financially savvy. A sign-up process that required manually uploading documents, filling out endless forms or, in the worst case scenario, going to an Ibercaja office, would have been disastrous for the product. The abandonment rate would have skyrocketed. The challenge was to design a registration flow that could be completed in less than 5 minutes from a cell phone, requiring as little user interaction as possible.
- Abandonment during the Process: Every additional click, every second of waiting, every ambiguous form field is an invitation to abandon. In a savings product like Pensumo, where the initial benefit to the user is small and long-term, the instant gratification of successful enrollment is crucial. The process had to be so seamless that the user felt it was effortless to start saving for their pension. The key was to move from a "sign-up process" to a "welcome experience".
- Fraud and Regulatory Compliance: This is the most complex challenge: How to reliably verify a user's identity through a digital channel? How to ensure that the person behind the cell phone is who they say they are and not an impostor? And how to do it without adding friction-generating steps? The solution was to integrate advanced KYC/AML technologies that would automate verification in real time, guaranteeing the regulatory compliance required by regulators such as SEPBLAC in Spain, with the user hardly noticing it.
In short, the great challenge of digital onboarding consists of solving a triple equation: shielding security, ensuring regulatory compliance and offering a seamless user experience. Precisely for this reason, the Pensumo-Ibercaja alliance needed an onboarding engine to solve this triple equation. The answer came in the form of Tecalis' RegTech solutions. This case exemplifies how specialist technology is key to transforming a critical process into a pillar of customer trust and loyalty, thus ensuring market leadership.
Innovation in onboarding: RegTech's response to market demands
In a FinTech environment where speed, security and trust are paramount, digital onboarding is no longer a simple formality but a critical process. The solution developed by Tecalis for Pensumo and Ibercaja represents one of the most advanced implementations in the market, combining RegTech technologies with a focus on user experience and regulatory compliance.
The process begins with an accurate biometric identification and a real-time proof of life, which guarantees that the user is who he/she says he/she is. To this is added an automatic analysis of the identity document using artificial intelligence, capable of detecting fraud, manipulation and invalid documents. This verification, which occurs in seconds, allows high security standards to be maintained without introducing frictions that affect the conversion.
The advanced electronic signature, integrated in the same flow, enables the user to complete the entire legal process in a single operation. This eIDAS-compliant functionality collects all the evidence of the process in a single audit document, reinforcing legal validity and simplifying traceability for compliance teams. In addition, AML/KYC controls such as the consultation of PEP lists and international sanctions are automatically executed, all without the user noticing it.
Another differentiating factor was the ability to adapt the technology to Pensumo's business model. Thanks to a flexible design, it was possible to reduce the onboarding time to less than a minute without sacrificing security or compliance. This combination of automation, intelligence and user experience positions digital onboarding not only as a gateway, but as a true accelerator for innovative FinTech models.
Benefits of state-of-the-art onboarding
The implementation of Tecalis' solutions for digital onboarding has been key to the success of Pensumo-Ibercaja, which has managed to consolidate itself as one of the most innovative FinTech projects in the Spanish ecosystem. The benefits are multiple and range from user experience to fraud reduction, providing tangible value for both companies and users.
eKYC/AML solutions radically transform the customer experience, as processes that used to require days and physical visits can now be completed in minutes from a mobile device. This agility not only improves satisfaction, but also dramatically increases conversion rates, in some cases by as much as 300%, by removing traditional barriers to entry.
KYC form, digital sourcing and due diligence in the same process
The collaboration between Tecalis and Pensumo, with the support of Ibercaja, has materialized an innovative FinTech product overcoming regulatory barriers through the financial Sandbox. The project relies on an advanced digital onboarding process that integrates biometric verification technologies and anti-fraud controls. This ensures a secure and frictionless customer onboarding, completed in seconds to optimize the user experience without sacrificing regulatory compliance.
From an operational perspective, automating verification and other manual processes leads to significant cost reductions, which can be as high as 70%. By minimizing human error and the need for personnel dedicated to repetitive tasks, organizations gain in accuracy and efficiency. In addition, the digital nature of these platforms allows for better scalability, making it easier to manage a large volume of new users without the need to increase resources proportionally, which is vital for fast-growing products.
In the area of compliance and safety, these systems offer robust, automated solutions. They facilitate regulatory compliance by maintaining complete audit trails that simplify inspections and reduce the risk of penalties. Simultaneously, they integrate machine learning technologies to proactively detect and prevent fraud, protecting the organization and its customers by continuously adapting to new threats.
Ultimately, the combination of all these factors translates into a sustainable competitive advantage. Companies can bring products to market faster, with a superior user experience and guaranteed regulatory compliance. The ability to analyze data in real time also enables continuous optimization and customization of the onboarding process, creating barriers to entry for competitors and setting new quality standards in the industry.
