Borrowers increasingly judge lenders by the speed and clarity of their credit journeys. In the age of instant payments and seamless e‑commerce, a loan process that still requires multiple visits, repeated document submissions or long silent pauses feels archaic. Yet many banks across Central and Eastern Europe, South‑Eastern Europe and the Baltics still take days to reach a decision. With elevated Stage 2 exposures and tightening credit standards, acting on stale information is not just inconvenient – it is risky. This article examines how digital intake, automated verification, embedded policy rules and AI‑driven scoring compress time to decision while strengthening governance.
Slow decisioning has real consequences. Customers abandon lengthy processes and seek credit from more agile competitors. Banks may misprice risk if they rely on outdated or incomplete data. The CESEE lending survey reveals that credit demand is strong across the region, but supply has been weak since 2022, though banks expect a slight improvement. Tight supply amplifies competition for quality borrowers. At the same time, recent euro‑area surveys report a net tightening of credit standards for firms, reflecting heightened risk perceptions. In this environment, the ability to make rapid, data‑rich decisions is a differentiator.
Faster decisions are not just a customer‑experience play; they also improve risk control. Real‑time verification and scoring enable lenders to identify emerging problems sooner and reduce manual rework. Banks operating across multiple jurisdictions can align decision logic and document requirements, reducing confusion and ensuring consistent compliance. The following sections outline the building blocks of accelerated decisioning and illustrate how Axe Credit Portal (ACP) delivers them in practice.
Borrowers expect speed in a riskier world
Lending decisions now take place against a backdrop of elevated risk and macro uncertainty. Stage 2 exposures have grown rapidly since 2021, reaching a significant share of total loans and remaining high through 2025. Commercial real estate and SMEs account for the largest shares of these exposures. Cost of risk remains low, but this could change quickly if macro conditions deteriorate. Meanwhile, regional research points out that CEE banks delivered returns on equity of roughly 15–20 % in 2024, masking underlying volatility and the need for disciplined risk management.
Tightening standards create a tension: banks must be cautious yet responsive. Recent surveys showing that banks tightened standards for firms and consumer credit suggest that lenders are prioritising risk control. But risk control cannot come at the expense of agility. Lenders that can ingest new information quickly and adjust decisions accordingly are better positioned to maintain portfolio quality and customer trust.
Digital intake and identity verification
The first step in compressing time to decision is digital intake. Borrowers submit information through structured online or mobile forms rather than unstructured emails or paper applications. Surveys show that about 43 % of banks and non‑bank lenders in the region offer online or mobile loan applications, and roughly 28 % provide fully digital processes. Digital channels capture data accurately at the source and reduce transcription errors. They also enable immediate feedback: if a field is incomplete or inconsistent, the applicant can be prompted to correct it in real time.
Identity verification is a common bottleneck. In markets with digital identity schemes, borrowers can authenticate remotely; where adoption is uneven, platforms still reduce friction by supporting secure uploads and automated checks. European policy initiatives emphasise the creation of pan‑European payment solutions and the strengthening of SEPA rails. While these initiatives focus on payments, they signal a broader policy direction toward standardised, resilient digital infrastructure that will spill over into credit journeys. Lenders should align their onboarding processes with emerging digital identity frameworks to enable seamless remote verification.
Automated verification and scoring
Once data is captured, the next hurdle is verification. Document intelligence applies optical character recognition and language models to classify documents, extract values and cross‑check consistency. This reduces manual data entry and ensures that risk analysts work only on exceptions. AI‑powered scoring models then convert raw data and behavioural signals into risk grades. Predictive analytics can incorporate cash‑flow seasonality, invoice timing and client concentration, updating as new transactions arrive. Such models are invaluable in CEE and SEE markets, where credit histories may be thin and data fragmented.
Industry experts warn that real‑world agentic AI applications remain uncommon due to regulatory hurdles and integration challenges, but they encourage banks to pursue high‑impact use cases. Continuous KYC maintenance using multi‑agent architectures is one example. For credit decisioning, the imperative is simpler: deploy scoring models that improve accuracy without introducing bias, and ensure they are explainable. As credit standards tighten, lenders need to justify decisions. Models should produce auditable outputs, capturing the inputs used and the reason for the outcome. This not only satisfies regulators but also builds internal trust in automated decisions.
Consistent policy enforcement and compliance
Fast decisions are only valuable if they comply with policy and regulation. Embedding policy rules in software ensures that every application is screened using the same criteria and that changes are propagated instantly across channels. Recent surveys emphasise that perceived risks and uncertainty contributed to tightening credit standards. When banks decide to tighten or loosen standards, the platform should enforce the change immediately, reducing the risk of manual misinterpretation.
Compliance extends beyond credit policy. Know‑your‑customer checks, sanctions screening and anti‑money‑laundering routines must be applied consistently at scale. The Digital Operational Resilience Act harmonises incident reporting and resilience requirements across the EU, highlighting the need for automated logs and audit trails. Agentic AI approaches may eventually automate continuous KYC and suspicious‑activity monitoring, but even today, embedding compliance steps into the lending platform accelerates decisioning by removing separate manual workflows.
Proactive monitoring and early warning
Time to decision is not just about origination; it is also about the ability to respond quickly when risk emerges. Early warning systems powered by machine learning detect changes in borrower behaviour – rising overdraft usage, delayed payments, negative sentiment – and alert lenders. The Vienna Initiative’s NPL Monitor emphasises that macro conditions influence non‑performing loan trends and advocates for timely interventions. By integrating early warning into the platform, banks can act before problems become defaults, reducing the number of urgent, manual interventions later.
Monitoring also feeds back into origination: if a segment shows rising early warning signals, decision rules can be tightened automatically. Conversely, segments with improving performance might be eased. This dynamic policy adjustment is only possible when data flows freely across the lifecycle and analytics are embedded, not bolted on.
Axe Credit Portal: Compressing time to “yes”
Axe Credit Portal illustrates how end‑to‑end automation shortens decision cycles in practice. ACP digitises intake through structured web and mobile interfaces and allows borrowers to upload documents securely. Its AI layer performs identity verification via face recognition, extracts data from payslips and financial statements, and completes customer risk profiling and micro‑segmentation. This eliminates repetitive document requests and reduces friction at onboarding.
Automated scoring engines within ACP integrate real‑time internal and external data and apply machine‑learning models to assign risk grades. Eligibility rules and peer comparison ensure that credit decisions are aligned with policy and market benchmarks. The platform supports multi‑class automatic decisions, enabling near‑instant approval, referral or decline for standard consumer and SME applications. Financial data ingestion, spreading and narrative generation are automated, allowing underwriters to focus on exceptions and complex cases.
For ongoing monitoring, ACP builds machine‑learning pipelines that generate early warning signals from transactional and behavioural data. If cash‑flow volatility increases or sentiment turns negative, the system alerts relationship managers, who can engage the borrower proactively. Because ACP spans origination to servicing, these signals can feed directly into policy adjustments and limit management.
Cross‑border deployment is a defining feature: ACP supports multiple languages, currencies and product types. For groups like OTP Group, which has implemented Axe Finance solutions across subsidiaries, this means consistent decision logic and faster cycle times across markets. Approval time has dropped, manual effort has fallen and audit trails have become richer, enabling regulators to trace decisions through every step.
Conclusion
Accelerating time to decision is both a competitive necessity and a risk‑management discipline for CEE/SEE/Baltic banks. Customers demand instant credit decisions, and regulators demand robust governance. Digital intake, automated verification, embedded policy rules, explainable AI scoring and early warning systems work together to reduce cycle time while enhancing compliance. Platforms like Axe Credit Portal demonstrate that it is possible to harmonise speed with prudence, freeing lenders to grow in an uncertain environment. As Stage 2 exposures remain elevated and macro risks linger, the ability to act quickly on high‑quality information will separate the leaders from the laggards.
References
- European Banking Authority: Risk Assessment Report – Autumn 2025
- European Investment Bank: CESEE Banking Lending Survey 2025 H1
- Raiffeisen Research: CEE Banking Sector Report 2024
- Deloitte: Banking Industry Outlook 2026
- Deloitte: Agentic AI in Banking
- CEE, SEE & Baltics Summit 2025 – Key Takeaways
- European Central Bank: Euro area bank lending survey Q3 2025
- Vienna Initiative: NPL Monitor H2 2024
- Axe Finance: AI‑based lending solution