How to reduce onboarding friction and drive conversions in Mexico

Slow onboarding kills growth. 

Every extra day in your approval process increases drop-offs, clogs your pipeline, and gives competitors the edge. Applicants apply to multiple institutions and often pick the first one that approves them. In the growing competition in Mexico, you can’t afford friction—and you can’t afford to compromise on compliance either.

Why onboarding speed matters more in Mexico

A fast onboarding experience has become a critical differentiator for Mexico’s financial institutions.

Mexico has become a fintech powerhouse. Businesses and individual applicants now have over 1,000 providers to choose from—in addition to traditional banking solutions. 

In this environment, swift approvals are more than a nice-to-have. They directly drive conversions by:

• Creating a “wow” first-time experience that leaves a lasting impression
• Building trust that leads to longer retention
• Removing friction so applicants can find value and commit to your product sooner

But for most institutions, faster onboarding is easier said than done.

Why onboarding is slow and manual in Mexico

Traditional KYB processes frustrate applicants, delay onboarding, and limit growth. Applicants wait for days, even weeks, for updates. Fulfilling Requests for Information (RFIs) further extends approval times. As a result, up to 70% of applicants drop off.

Several factors make onboarding compliant businesses in Mexico highly manual and inefficient:

• Time-intensive manual reviews: Most KYB tools weren’t built for Mexico. Ops teams analyze dozens of complex documents with highly inconsistent formatting by hand—like Actas Constitutivas, Powers of Attorney, and Actas Asambleas. Non-standard websites also make it harder and slower to find necessary business info online. The process is slow, error-prone, and overwhelming at scale.
  
• Massive application backlogs: Instead of real-time review, most applications sit in a queue. If the backlog becomes unmanageable, institutions hire seasonal or temporary analysts. Their training further delays reviews.‍
• Disruptive RFIs and drop-offs: More than half of applications require additional documents that trigger a time-consuming resubmission cycle. Sales teams chase applicants over WhatsApp and email. Applicants need time to collect more documents. Many never come back. For those that do, Ops analysts review the revised applications. If information is still incomplete, the back-and-forth continues.

Imagine you’re an applicant. You spend hours gathering multiple documents. Days pass before you receive an RFI. You scramble, collect more documentation, and resubmit. The clock resets. After weeks of waiting, you receive yet another RFI—meaning more document hunts, more uploads, and more delays.

Applicants are tired of waiting. They’re used to opening accounts or launching storefronts in minutes. When your onboarding process takes weeks, they move on.

Aplazo’s before-and-after with Niva

Aplazo used to spend weeks on back-and-forth emails, manual reviews, and new analyst training. The resulting friction led to applicant drop-off and slower growth.

After switching to Niva:

• 98% less time spent on KYB
• 30% increase in sales rep productivity
• Fewer drop-offs and faster go-lives
• Automatic 360° reviews that significantly reduce fraud and compliance risk

“Niva’s output is spotless. We get comprehensive verification results with a lot less time and effort. Real-time data validation has not only freed up all the hours we used to spend chasing merchants online, but we now see significantly less drop-off during the application process.”

— ‍‍Jose Antonio Yañez, Operations Manager at Aplazo

Build an A+ onboarding experience and fuel growth with Niva

Niva is the only AI-native KYB platform purpose-built for Mexico.The platform automates every step of the KYB workflow, bringing reviews to <10 minutes with:

• Pre-filled applications:We use verified data and documents from public and private sources to pre-fill required fields and documents, cutting applicant effort and reducing input errors. You can customize the data sources to meet your compliance needs.
• Real-time validation: Documents are verified on upload. Errors are flagged instantly so applicants can fix them before submission—no RFIs, no follow-ups.
  
  
• Automated, 360° KYB reviews: Niva’s AI automatically cross-checks complex, non-standard business and tax documents, websites, and social profiles against trusted 3P sources with >95% accuracy. Compliance increases and fraud risk drops, giving you the peace of mind to focus on business growth.

Frictionless onboarding isn’t just possible, it’s essential.

With Niva, you can turn KYB into a growth driver and competitive edge.

Book a demo today!

‍