A strong bank. A broken front door.

Community banks face a structural problem: they carry the same compliance obligations as the largest institutions — BSA, FinCEN CDD, USA PATRIOT Act, OFAC — but with a fraction of the operational infrastructure. The result is a business account onboarding process that often stretches to six, eight, even twelve weeks from application to account open.

The breaking points tend to cluster in two places: document collection, where applicants are expected to navigate a bespoke list and submit via email or branch visit; and beneficial ownership verification, where complex structures stall cases for weeks while staff manually trace entities and chase additional documentation.

Industry research from Cornerstone Advisors found that more than one-third of small business applicants abandon bank onboarding processes before account opening — with time-to-open cited as the primary driver.^[1] For a bank opening 300 commercial accounts per year, that represents roughly 150 applications that never converted.

"The honest question every community bank COO should ask is: how many good commercial clients did we lose last year not because our product was wrong — but because our process drove them away?"

Abandonment is only half the problem.

Beyond lost applicants, compliance teams at community banks typically spend an estimated 35–45% of their working week on administrative onboarding tasks: chasing documents, re-keying data from PDFs, and coordinating between loan officers, BSA officers, and external screening providers. That is not compliance work. That is data entry.

McKinsey & Company's financial services research estimates that banks spend between $2,000 and $5,000 per commercial client onboarding event when staff time and compliance overhead are fully costed.^[2] The opportunity to compress that cost while simultaneously improving the client experience is the core value SkimPath delivers.

No rip-and-replace. A smarter front end.

SkimPath does not replace a community bank's core banking system, AML screening provider, or existing compliance workflow. It replaces the chaos that happens before a file reaches an underwriter — the email chains, the document chases, the manual re-keying, the stalled beneficial ownership cases.

A business applicant receives a personalised onboarding link. A conversational AI agent collects the correct documents based on entity type, guides all beneficial owners through verification simultaneously, runs the required KYC/AML and sanctions checks, and assembles a complete, audit-ready file — delivered directly into the bank's core system without a single manual touchpoint.

The underwriter opens a complete file. Everything they need to decide is already there. No gathering. No re-keying. Just the decision.

Indicative outcomes based on SkimPath capability modelling and industry benchmarks. Actual results depend on institution size, complexity, and existing systems.

What changes for your team.

See what this looks like for your institution.

We'll walk through exactly how SkimPath connects to your existing stack — no commitment, no sales theatre.

Competing on experience, not just rates.

Credit unions have a structural competitive advantage in rates, member ownership, and community trust. What many cannot yet match is the onboarding experience that digital-first banks and fintechs have made the baseline expectation for small business members.

Business members applying for a business account increasingly expect the same frictionless digital experience they get from their personal banking apps. Finding instead a process that requires branch visits, email chains, and a multi-week wait is enough to drive significant abandonment — even among members who were enthusiastic about the relationship.

Research from America's Credit Unions found that credit unions that fail to offer digital-first business account opening lose an estimated 28% of prospective business members to banks and fintechs before any relationship begins.^[1] In practice, for credit unions with manual onboarding workflows, the figure is often considerably higher.

"The challenge every credit union faces is this: you're a relationship-first institution. But the first relationship a business member has with you is filling out forms and waiting six weeks. That's not a relationship. That's a queue."

The experience gap is measurable — and closing it has a direct impact.

A modern experience. The same compliance rigour.

SkimPath is configured to feel like an extension of the credit union's brand and member relationship — not a generic bank portal. Business members receive a personalised onboarding link that guides them through a conversational, mobile-friendly intake process. Documents can be submitted via web, mobile, or WhatsApp — a channel that's particularly effective for small business owners who run mobile-first operations.

The critical unlock for complex business accounts is parallel beneficial ownership verification. Where manual onboarding processes handle beneficial owners sequentially — one at a time, often over days — SkimPath initiates all owner verifications simultaneously. A four-owner LLC that previously took two weeks to fully verify can be completed in under six hours.

The result is an onboarding experience that can genuinely compete with the digital-first alternatives — while maintaining the full compliance rigour a credit union's regulators and auditors expect.

Indicative outcomes based on SkimPath capability modelling. Results depend on institution size, existing workflows, and member mix.

Ready to compete on experience?

We'll show you what SkimPath looks like for a credit union of your size — and what you can realistically expect in the first 90 days.

The most expensive word in commercial insurance: incomplete.

Commercial specialty MGAs require detailed submission packages: ACORD forms, multi-year loss runs, audited financials, entity verification, beneficial owner documentation, and more depending on the line. When a submission arrives incomplete — a missing loss run, an expired certificate, a gap in the ownership chain — the entire case stalls.

According to IVANS Insurance Solutions' annual distribution survey, incomplete submissions are the single largest source of delay cited by commercial lines underwriters, adding an average of 18 days to the placement cycle.^[1] At many MGAs, the majority of submissions arrive with at least one missing or unacceptable document.

The downstream effect is compounding: account managers spend the majority of their time chasing brokers for missing information rather than placing risk. Brokers, frustrated by slow response times, begin routing simpler accounts to faster competitors. Underwriters stay permanently behind. And the MGA loses ground to rivals who've solved the front-end problem.

"Brokers go where they get answers fastest. Speed-to-quote is now the primary criterion by which brokers select their MGA partners for standard commercial lines — ahead of appetite, pricing, and even relationship."

The cost of slow and incomplete.

Collect everything before it lands on a desk.

SkimPath is configured to the MGA's specific lines, coverage types, and jurisdictional requirements. When a broker initiates a submission, they receive a structured intake link that already knows exactly what documents are required for that specific risk — not a generic checklist.

Documents are validated on upload. Loss runs checked for the required date range. Financials checked for completeness. Entity documents cross-referenced against stated ownership. If something is missing, the broker is told immediately and specifically — a precise instruction, not a generic rejection. The friction shifts from the MGA back to the point where it can be resolved fastest: the broker, before the case is ever submitted.

Only complete submissions enter the underwriting queue — with documents already read, data already extracted, entities already verified, and a preliminary risk classification already attached. The underwriter opens a submission and makes a decision. Not a data-gathering exercise. A decision.

Indicative outcomes based on SkimPath capability modelling. Results vary by line of business, submission complexity, and broker mix.

Faster for your team. Better for your brokers.

The impact of eliminating incomplete submission friction isn't felt only internally. Brokers notice when an MGA becomes the fastest and clearest to work with. When a structured intake process tells them exactly what's needed — and validates it in real time — the submission experience itself becomes a competitive differentiator.

MGAs that invest in the submission experience see measurable improvements in broker NPS, new broker appointments, and — critically — the routing decisions brokers make when they have an account they could place anywhere. Speed and clarity win accounts that appetite alone cannot.

See what this means for your book.

We'll walk you through SkimPath configured for your specific lines and submission workflow — no commitment required.