Record number of European consumers abandon financial applications during onboarding

 

On Wednesday 30th March (8am BST), Signicat has publish the fifth edition of its “Battle to Onboard” report that investigates the experiences and expectations of financial service applications of 7,000 consumers across 14 European markets.
The study founded that 68% of consumers in Europe have abandoned a financial application in the past year. That’s up from 63% in 2020, and the worst abandonment rate since the study began in 2016 when the rate was 40%.
This raises a question – why are abandonment rates rising when financial service providers have improved the onboarding experience through digitisation? The report reveals an “expectation paradox” where a better user experience leads to higher consumer expectations—and more abandoned applications from frustrated consumers if those increasingly loftier expectations aren’t met.
Other key findings include:
  • Nearly a third (30%) of respondents said that they found the application process “complicated”.
  • The average time that a consumer would typically abandon an online application for a financial product was 18 minutes and 53 seconds. This is seven minutes faster than the 26 minutes it took for a consumer to abandon in 2020.
  • 92% of consumers are concerned about how financial service providers are using and taking care of their data, thanks in part to a lack of understanding of why this data is needed.
  • COVID is still affecting access to services. 42% of respondents found they were still unable to access essential financial services—up very slightly from 2020.

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