A smarter way to reduce digital agreement delays

• Digital agreements often experience delays long after the signature process has been digitized.
• Manual document preparation, identity verification, ans compliance reviews create operational bottlenecks.
• AI-assisted and automated digital workflows can reduce manual work while maintaining business compliance.
• OneSpan Sign's latest innovations help complete agreements forward faster without sacrificing security or control.

Why digital agreements still experience delays

Electronic signatures transformed the way organizations execute agreements. But they did not eliminate operational work, compliance reviews, document exceptions, and other manual tasks that happen before or after the signature. 

Whether your customer is closing on a mortgage or applying for insurance, the signature itself takes seconds. 

But the work surrounding it can take hours, days, or even weeks when:

• Identities need verifying
• Documents need to be collected and reviewed
• Errors and inconsistencies need to be fixed 
• Customers need to understand what they’re signing
• Once signed, agreements need to move into the next business process

Every additional step between your customers and the outcome they want to achieve creates a risk of delays, frustration, or abandonment. 

“Customer satisfaction weakens significantly after the bank’s second request for supporting materials. But despite recent efforts to streamline the process, lenders reach out to customers on average three times to request additional documents.” 
- McKinsey & Company, Growth strategies for the purchase-mortgage market, 2024

Although financial institutions and insurance companies have invested heavily in digital customer journeys, many agreement processes still depend on manual work behind the scenes:

• A sender manually prepares another document
• A customer submits an expired ID
• Information on one document doesn't match the application
• An identity check requires intervention
• A reviewer must determine whether a document requires further investigation

Once an issue is discovered, someone must contact the customer, wait for a correction, and review the submission again.

Individually, these may seem minor. Across hundreds or thousands of agreements, however, they add significant operational work, extend completion times, and slow the path to a mortgage closing, new bank account, insurance policy, or other outcomes your customers are trying to achieve.

Is it possible to improve speed without compromising business compliance?