How Plaid Europe lifted onboarding conversion by 67%.
0%
straight-through processing, up from 0%
0.0min
per complex case review
0%
conversion increase
Hande Kahraman
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Plaid Europe is the European arm of Plaid, the company that connects fintech apps to bank accounts across the US, UK, and Europe. Its compliance teams onboard customers for account information services (AIS) and payment initiation services (PIS).
On Duna, human-readable policies become machine-readable rules, so every case is assessed against them and comes with a recommended decision. For Plaid’s customers, completing the form takes an average of 32.6 minutes of active time, and around 82% of onboardings go through straight-through processing. Business onboarding conversion rose 67% in Q1 2026. For analysts, a complex case review takes 24.2 minutes, and 97.5% of reviews end in approval. Plaid’s team configured its own policies, which improved its processes and moved these numbers.
How business onboarding worked at Plaid before Duna
Before Duna, Plaid’s onboarding was a chain of manual steps. Sales emailed a Google Form to the customer. The customer returned it by email with supporting documents. Sales forwarded the completed file to compliance, who identified gaps and went back through sales to the customer for the rest. A form could be technically complete without containing what compliance needed to verify, and a single missing document could absorb three or four days of back-and-forth.
“Onboarding used to be Google spreadsheets and documents over email. The whole process was overly manual and time-consuming.” Joe Deirmand, Senior Compliance Analyst, Plaid
Why Plaid moved business onboarding onto the Duna platform
Building a replacement internally wasn’t realistic. Plaid’s engineering team was already stretched, and KYB tooling couldn’t compete for a roadmap. The team evaluated established vendors; most offered fixed systems with limited customization.
“The ultimate deciding factor was that we wanted something bespoke - something that would fit our needs. A lot of the vendors we spoke to had a specific system they would give you off the shelf, and customization was limited. The conversations we had with Duna were different: we will give you our platform, and we will work with you to build it the way you need it to work.” Joe Deirmand, Senior Compliance Analyst, Plaid
The tools that had previously lived in separate inboxes - the customer form, the document store, sanctions and adverse media screening, the case queue - merged into the Duna platform, used by both Plaid’s sales team and its compliance team.
“Everyone is over the moon about it. It’s one of the best additions we’ve had.” Joe Deirmand, Senior Compliance Analyst, Plaid
Sales sends the onboarding invitation from inside Duna, which removes a handoff that used to mean compliance going to sales every time a customer needed to be added. The customer fills out a form that only shows fields relevant to their legal form, market, and product (AIS or PIS), with registry data pre-filled where available. Compliance sees a case the moment screening, verification, and registry lookups have run against policy. Every clarification and document request stays inside the case file.
“If we have a query, or there’s something we want clarity on, everything is always through the platform. It’s never a case of me externally emailing somebody to ask a question.” Joe Deirmand, Senior Compliance Analyst, Plaid
What Plaid’s business onboarding results on Duna look like
Sales and compliance teams across Europe are live in Duna for new customer onboarding; existing customers are being migrated in phases; perpetual KYC, deeper analytics, and the wider case-management surface will land in subsequent releases.
The numbers, from Plaid’s dashboard, over the last 90 days:
82% straight-through processing: onboardings accepted on the first submission, without follow-ups.
67% conversion increase: more customers finish onboarding.
32.6 minutes average active onboarding time per customer: time spent actively filling the form.
24.2 minutes per KYB review: typical review time per case.
97.5% approval rate in reviews: share of reviews that end in approval.
Straight-through processing has climbed from 49% to 82% in Q1 2026, as policies and registry coverage have matured.
“Around 82% of onboardings now clear first time, without follow-ups. That is down to our policy configuration and Duna running the checks before we see the case.” Joe Deirmand, Senior Compliance Analyst, Plaid
What Plaid is building next on Duna
For Joe and Araba Eshun, Plaid’s Head of Compliance for Europe, onboarding is the first stage of a longer project: bringing onboarding, case management, ongoing monitoring, and periodic review into one place.
“We didn’t choose Duna just to fix onboarding. The longer-term aim - bringing case management, ongoing monitoring, and third-party integrations into one place - is what made this a strategic choice for our compliance function, not just an operational one.” Araba Eshun, Head of Compliance, Europe, Plaid
Plaid Europe now runs business onboarding for its AIS and PIS customers on Duna, where sanctions screening, identity verification, and registry lookups run against policy before an analyst opens the case. The typical review takes 24.2 minutes, 97.5% of reviews end in approval, and around 82% of onboardings go through straight-through processing.
About Duna
Duna is an agentic client lifecycle management platform for banks, fintechs and marketplaces. It turns human-readable policies into machine-readable rules, so Duna’s agents can apply them to every case and recommend a decision, with the evidence behind it. Duna is headquartered in Amsterdam and has raised more than €40 million from Index Ventures and CapitalG. Customers include Pennylane, seQura, Brand New Day, Moss and bol.
See how Duna helps fintech onboard legitimate customers faster, with risk-based due diligence behind every decision. Get in touch.
Plaid Europe is the European arm of Plaid, the company that connects fintech apps to bank accounts across the US, UK, and Europe. Its compliance teams onboard customers for account information services (AIS) and payment initiation services (PIS).
On Duna, human-readable policies become machine-readable rules, so every case is assessed against them and comes with a recommended decision. For Plaid’s customers, completing the form takes an average of 32.6 minutes of active time, and around 82% of onboardings go through straight-through processing. Business onboarding conversion rose 67% in Q1 2026. For analysts, a complex case review takes 24.2 minutes, and 97.5% of reviews end in approval. Plaid’s team configured its own policies, which improved its processes and moved these numbers.
How business onboarding worked at Plaid before Duna
Before Duna, Plaid’s onboarding was a chain of manual steps. Sales emailed a Google Form to the customer. The customer returned it by email with supporting documents. Sales forwarded the completed file to compliance, who identified gaps and went back through sales to the customer for the rest. A form could be technically complete without containing what compliance needed to verify, and a single missing document could absorb three or four days of back-and-forth.
“Onboarding used to be Google spreadsheets and documents over email. The whole process was overly manual and time-consuming.” Joe Deirmand, Senior Compliance Analyst, Plaid
Why Plaid moved business onboarding onto the Duna platform
Building a replacement internally wasn’t realistic. Plaid’s engineering team was already stretched, and KYB tooling couldn’t compete for a roadmap. The team evaluated established vendors; most offered fixed systems with limited customization.
“The ultimate deciding factor was that we wanted something bespoke - something that would fit our needs. A lot of the vendors we spoke to had a specific system they would give you off the shelf, and customization was limited. The conversations we had with Duna were different: we will give you our platform, and we will work with you to build it the way you need it to work.” Joe Deirmand, Senior Compliance Analyst, Plaid
The tools that had previously lived in separate inboxes - the customer form, the document store, sanctions and adverse media screening, the case queue - merged into the Duna platform, used by both Plaid’s sales team and its compliance team.
“Everyone is over the moon about it. It’s one of the best additions we’ve had.” Joe Deirmand, Senior Compliance Analyst, Plaid
Sales sends the onboarding invitation from inside Duna, which removes a handoff that used to mean compliance going to sales every time a customer needed to be added. The customer fills out a form that only shows fields relevant to their legal form, market, and product (AIS or PIS), with registry data pre-filled where available. Compliance sees a case the moment screening, verification, and registry lookups have run against policy. Every clarification and document request stays inside the case file.
“If we have a query, or there’s something we want clarity on, everything is always through the platform. It’s never a case of me externally emailing somebody to ask a question.” Joe Deirmand, Senior Compliance Analyst, Plaid
What Plaid’s business onboarding results on Duna look like
Sales and compliance teams across Europe are live in Duna for new customer onboarding; existing customers are being migrated in phases; perpetual KYC, deeper analytics, and the wider case-management surface will land in subsequent releases.
The numbers, from Plaid’s dashboard, over the last 90 days:
82% straight-through processing: onboardings accepted on the first submission, without follow-ups.
67% conversion increase: more customers finish onboarding.
32.6 minutes average active onboarding time per customer: time spent actively filling the form.
24.2 minutes per KYB review: typical review time per case.
97.5% approval rate in reviews: share of reviews that end in approval.
Straight-through processing has climbed from 49% to 82% in Q1 2026, as policies and registry coverage have matured.
“Around 82% of onboardings now clear first time, without follow-ups. That is down to our policy configuration and Duna running the checks before we see the case.” Joe Deirmand, Senior Compliance Analyst, Plaid
What Plaid is building next on Duna
For Joe and Araba Eshun, Plaid’s Head of Compliance for Europe, onboarding is the first stage of a longer project: bringing onboarding, case management, ongoing monitoring, and periodic review into one place.
“We didn’t choose Duna just to fix onboarding. The longer-term aim - bringing case management, ongoing monitoring, and third-party integrations into one place - is what made this a strategic choice for our compliance function, not just an operational one.” Araba Eshun, Head of Compliance, Europe, Plaid
Plaid Europe now runs business onboarding for its AIS and PIS customers on Duna, where sanctions screening, identity verification, and registry lookups run against policy before an analyst opens the case. The typical review takes 24.2 minutes, 97.5% of reviews end in approval, and around 82% of onboardings go through straight-through processing.
About Duna
Duna is an agentic client lifecycle management platform for banks, fintechs and marketplaces. It turns human-readable policies into machine-readable rules, so Duna’s agents can apply them to every case and recommend a decision, with the evidence behind it. Duna is headquartered in Amsterdam and has raised more than €40 million from Index Ventures and CapitalG. Customers include Pennylane, seQura, Brand New Day, Moss and bol.
See how Duna helps fintech onboard legitimate customers faster, with risk-based due diligence behind every decision. Get in touch.
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