How does funding impact digital applications?
Last updated: October 9, 2026
Funding is where a new account becomes a working relationship, and it's also where applicants are most likely to leave. How you set up funding affects two numbers you care about: how many applicants finish their application, and how many new accounts open with money in them. This article covers what we see across financial institutions on Glide, so you can choose a setup on purpose.
Where applicants drop off
The drop-off happens on the first funding screen, where the applicant is asked to choose a funding method. At financial institutions that include a funding step, about 38% of applicants who pass eligibility leave at this screen without choosing a method. At financial institutions with no funding step, the drop-off at the same point in the application is about 11%.
Once an applicant chooses a funding method, almost everyone finishes. About 97–98% go on to submit, and that holds for card, ACH, Apple Pay and Google Pay alike.
The deposit amount isn't the main lever
It's easy to assume a lower opening deposit fixes drop-off. The data doesn't show that. Most financial institutions on Glide already have a $5 minimum, and about 70% of funding transactions are $25 or less. Two financial institutions with the same $5 minimum can have very different drop-off rates.
One setup does stand out, though. The best funding completion rate we see belongs to a financial institution that still shows the funding step but sets a $0 minimum on its basic accounts. Applicants still see funding as a normal part of opening an account, but a small deposit is clearly optional. If drop-off is a concern for you, this setup is worth testing.
Should you turn on Skip Funding?
Some financial institutions ask whether to let applicants skip funding altogether. Before you turn on Skip Funding, know what it does to funded accounts. When one financial institution turned it on, the share of approved applicants who funded their account fell from 94% to 36%. The number of funded new accounts per month dropped by about half.
Skip Funding means many more accounts open with no money in them. That can make sense if your focus is membership growth and you have strong follow-up to fund accounts later. If a new account's value to you depends on an opening deposit, it's probably the wrong move.
Failed fundings after approval
Some applicants are approved and submit a payment, but still end up unfunded because the payment fails. About 15% of card fundings for approved applicants fail, and failure rates vary by financial institution from about 6% to 27%. The top reason is insufficient funds, which accounts for 43% of card failures, even on deposits of $5–$25.
Glide checks the balance when the applicant connects their card. The funds are pulled when the application is approved. If the application is approved right away, the balance check and the payment happen almost at the same time. If the application goes to review, the balance can change between the check and the approval, and the payment can fail even though the check passed.
To reduce these failures:
Increase your auto-approval rate. When an application is approved automatically, the balance check and the payment happen almost at the same time, so the payment is much less likely to fail. Every application that goes to manual review leaves time for the applicant's balance to change. Work with your Glide team to find which rules send applications to review and whether any can be safely adjusted to approve more applicants automatically.
Plan follow-up for failed payments. An approved applicant whose deposit failed is still an engaged new account holder. A quick outreach with an easy way to fund can recover many of these accounts.
ACH failure rates look lower in the data. But returned ACH transfers usually show up days after the fact, so they're often not reflected in funding numbers. If you rely heavily on ACH, check your returns alongside your funding numbers.
Reading your funding numbers
When you look at your funding ratio, two things can make it look worse than your digital experience really is:
Failed payments count as unfunded. An applicant who was approved but whose payment was declined counts the same as one who never tried.
Staff-assisted applications may be included. Applications opened through the staff dashboard and funded in a branch may not have that funding recorded digitally. A healthy digital funding flow can then look like it's only around 50%.
If your ratio looks low, ask your Glide team to break it out by digital versus staff-assisted, and by never-attempted versus failed.
Choosing your setup
Setup | Best for | Trade-off |
|---|---|---|
Funding required, standard minimum | Making sure new accounts start with money in them | Highest drop-off at the funding step |
Funding shown, $0 minimum on basic accounts | Keeping funding in the flow while making a deposit feel optional | Some accounts open with no deposit; worth testing and measuring |
Skip Funding | Growth goals where funding can happen later | Far fewer funded accounts; needs a strong plan to fund accounts later |
Whichever setup you choose, we recommend a few things:
Offer every funding method available to you. Completion is high across all of them, so more options mean fewer applicants who can't find one that works.
Keep minimums low. Raising them doesn't lead to more funding.
Increase your auto-approval rate, and have a follow-up plan for approved applicants whose payment failed.
Look at your numbers again 30–60 days after any change, using the breakdowns above.
Your Glide team can help you compare your current funding results with these patterns and decide whether a change makes sense.