Banks are now poised to take the next revolutionary step: moving beyond automation to true autonomy. The COVID-19 pandemic was a crucible for the banking industry, and the crisis-driven scramble to digitise operations has since laid the groundwork for a far more profound transformation. In recent years, generative AI (GenAI) has dominated industry discussions — and for good reason. It has proven to be a powerful tool for lenders, capable of summarising complex reports and extracting insights from vast datasets quickly and efficiently. Yet, GenAI remains largely assistive. It supports analysts, yet the analyst still drives the process, piecing together outputs and navigating complex workflows. The true future of lending lies in technology that can take the wheel. This is the dawn of agentic AI—technology that doesn’t just respond to queries but understands objectives, plans tasks and executes end-to-end processes autonomously. Take credit assessment, for example. Traditionally, underwriting has been a manual, time-consuming process. Analysts spend countless hours sifting through disparate data sources, striving for consistency and often delaying the "time to yes" in this fast-moving, competitive market. Numerous studies show that reducing loan approval times from days to under an hour can increase loan conversion rates by up to 34%, directly boosting new lending revenue and enhancing customer satisfaction. Agentic systems reimagine this process into a single, intelligent workflow. A relationship manager might set a simple goal: "Generate a full credit memo for Company X." The agent takes over, autonomously ingesting and structuring financial statements, calculating key ratios, scoring the borrower against the bank’s risk models and synthesising the findings into a near-complete credit memo in the bank’s template. This isn't just faster reporting; it's intelligent orchestration of a complex process, freeing experts to focus on what they do best—applying strategic judgment rather than routine tasks. Industry analysis shows that automating manual underwriting tasks can cut associated costs by as much as 70%, with some banks reporting annual savings exceeding $500,000, alongside significant gains in loan officer productivity. Building trust in autonomous systems As financial institutions move toward autonomy, trust becomes the cornerstone of adoption—particularly in a domain where precision and accountability are paramount. Enterprise-ready agentic systems cannot operate as opaque "black boxes". Trust must be anchored in three pillars: Verifiable, curated data: Combining internal bank data with reliable third-party sources to prevent misinformation. Traceability: Ensuring every data point has a clear audit trail that enables analysts to verify sources. Human oversight: A qualified expert must always remain in the loop to validate and make final decisions. Traditional manual credit assessments can carry a 15% to 25% error rate, while automation and AI-driven systems have been shown to reduce these mistakes by more than half, resulting in better decisions. Embracing autonomy doesn't require a risky, all-or-nothing leap. The journey should be phased and pragmatic. Banks can begin by integrating task-specific agents into existing workflows to drive immediate efficiency. As trust and capability grow, they can progress toward more complex, multi-agent systems. AI-powered lending delivers results The financial institutions that will lead in the years ahead are those that embrace this strategic evolution. They won’t just respond to market shifts—they’ll shape them, powered by intelligent, resilient operating models. The future of lending isn’t about replacing human expertise—it’s about amplifying it to levels of precision, speed and quality never before possible. Leveraging AI-enabled lending platforms, a UK-based fintech reported unlocking new capital opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), contributing to up to 150% growth in SME assets and over 50% employment growth within three years across its small-business lending portfolio. Omar Akkor is the senior director of market strategy for the banking segment at Moody’s.
