The numbers paint a revealing picture. Although 87% of financial institution leaders recognise the transformative potential of intelligent automation, just 32% have scaled beyond pilot programmes to enterprise-wide adoption. This 55-point execution gap is costing the financial industry billions in unrealised efficiency gains.
Most executives blame the technology – but that’s a misconception, according to nCino.
Research from American Banker and National Mortgage News, surveying 253 financial services executives, found that 95% of automation barriers are rooted in organisational and strategic shortcomings rather than technological issues.
It’s not legacy systems or budget constraints at fault; it’s execution.
This finding shifts the focus for leadership teams. Instead of chasing new AI innovations, success lies in mastering organisational change, process optimisation, and performance measurement—the less glamorous but far more impactful foundations of automation success.
The four execution gaps holding institutions back
Integration architecture complexity: While this seems like a technical challenge, it’s actually strategic. Many financial institutions don’t fully understand their workflows, leading to disjointed integrations.
For instance, loan officers still manually verify data already validated by systems, and service teams re-enter existing information.
Those leading in automation begin by mapping the true customer journey, uncovering exception cases that often account for 15–20% of transactions but require completely separate workflows.
Implementation planning and resource allocation: Failures here reflect weak project management.
Institutions underestimate the need for comprehensive planning—from stakeholder alignment to change management. Top performers begin with targeted 90-day proof-of-concept projects, define success metrics upfront, and dedicate their best process experts full-time.
They see automation as an operational improvement initiative, not merely a tech deployment.
Strategic priority management: When automation competes with too many projects, it signals unclear leadership vision.
Strong institutions prioritise automation over discretionary efforts, communicate transparently about trade-offs, and demonstrate how early wins unlock future investments.
Capability development requirements: The biggest misconception is focusing only on technical skills like AI while ignoring execution capabilities such as change management and performance measurement.
Winning organisations empower frontline employees to guide automation efforts since they know where bottlenecks occur and where automation can add real value.
The vendor dependency trap
A concerning 41% of financial institutions rely primarily on FinTech partnerships for automation, compared to only 18% developing in-house capabilities.
While external vendors can fast-track early progress, they cannot resolve internal execution challenges.
Leading institutions treat vendor relationships as learning partnerships.
They ensure agreements include knowledge transfer, documentation, and training—measuring success by their teams’ ability to manage automated systems independently.
What success looks like
Institutions that execute automation effectively report 50–80% efficiency gains in areas like financial spreading, freeing teams to focus on customer relationships and strategic growth.
The difference compounds over time: organisations that track performance rigorously continually optimise and justify further investment.
Successful financial institutions embrace several key principles:
Culture drives success: With 34% citing cultural resistance as a key barrier, cultural readiness is a stronger predictor of success than technology or budget.
Simplicity sustains results: The best projects tackle clear, manageable problems using proven technology rather than complex AI-heavy processes.
Internal capability is essential: Partnerships help initiate automation, but sustained performance improvement depends on internal skill development.
The competitive window is closing
The industry is at a turning point. The automation execution gap presents a temporary competitive edge for institutions that can deliver effectively—but this window is narrowing fast.
As automation tools become more accessible, lagging organisations risk falling behind as faster-moving competitors capture market share and customer loyalty.
TO succeed, firms must develop automation execution excellence now, or spend the next decade trying to catch up with those who already have.
All data has been taken fromIntelligent Automation Research 2025, conducted by American Banker/National Mortgage News and sponsored by nCino, surveying 253 financial services leaders including credit unions, banks, and mortgage companies.
Read the full blog from nCino here.
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