Converting Agreements into Tangible Value

Manual and fragmented agreement processes slow down time to revenue, increase risk, and create poor customer experiences. Developers are charged with solving these challenges, often relying on custom code and maintaining siloed systems.

The developer’s job isn’t easy. Due to manual data flows, repetitive data entry, and inadequate integration of disparate systems, financial services organizations frequently encounter high “not in good order” (NIGO) rates and compliance risks in account onboarding and servicing workflows.

Often, valuable agreement data is locked in static PDFs, making it difficult to unearth crucial information and causing bottlenecks in transaction, reporting, and compliance workflows. And, integrating agreements into existing workflows requires developers to use custom code, which slows timelines and requires ongoing maintenance.

To bridge the gap between securing signed agreements and achieving value capture, developers at financial services organizations must automate financial workflows, unlock AI-ready data, and build for compliance at scale.

Recently, at Discover 2025, Docusign hosted an expert DevX panel featuring development leaders from Stripe, JPMorgan, DevRel Bridge, and This Dot Labs. The panel explored how embedded partner workflows help convert signed agreements into tangible value, and how AI is transforming post-signature management by turning static contracts into intelligent assets.

Unlocking hidden value in agreements

Agreements play an important role in conducting business—especially the signed, completed contract—but there's much more to consider.

“The business of agreements is inherently complex,” says Rebecca Denman, vice president of product management at Docusign. “We’re continually investing in making our intelligent workflow and components available to our developer community. This allows you to customize the agreement journey and, critically, leverage our agreement understanding and its inherent value within other systems.”

The agreement process generates a wealth of information: negotiated terms; exceptions; approvals; tax forms and other supplemental documentation; and even supporting actions, such as ID verification and payment details.

Use case: payments

Docusign offers several powerful financial services integrations that unlock the hidden value in agreements. One example is the Stripe integration, which seamlessly weaves payments into the agreement signing process.

“Like payments, agreements are dynamic,” says David Hansen, platform partnerships manager at Stripe. “When and how they occur can be different for many businesses.” 

Hansen notes that preferred payment methods vary by industry, customer preference, and geography. Similarly, payment terms and timelines can be singular, recurring, or reflective of services rendered or other integrations. Such third-party integrations are essential for financial services organizations looking to accelerate revenue capture.

“Agreements most often imply a transaction,” says Hansen. “Stripe currently powers Docusign’s payment integration in eSignature. It’s instrumental in tying a completed agreement directly to revenue.”

Use case: account opening

Opening an account is often a customer’s first interaction with an institution. It may seem simple, but this brief touchpoint plays a critical role in shaping customer perception.

Consumers expect account opening to be quick, intuitive, and fully digital. But behind the scenes, the process is highly complex and employs multiple discrete steps, including:

• Ensuring the accuracy of customer-provided data

• Verification of the customer’s identity

• Routing the agreement to the proper individuals or departments within the organization

• Extracting and transferring data to and from core systems

• Ensuring compliance with all applicable regulations, laws, and policies

Docusign helps development teams easily and securely build account opening processes for financial institutions. The account opening solution includes flexible technologies like Maestro to create reusable workflows that orchestrate and automate business processes, Web Forms to collect customer information, and ID Verification to confirm customer identity in digital transactions.

Agreement value goes beyond revenue

Agreement value can be measured in a variety of ways, including transaction completion, speed, trust, and security, says Chris Apaliski, vice president of product marketing at JPMorgan Chase.

“A completed and reconciled transaction is a good start,” he says. “The proper reconciliation of a transaction with zero issues is a huge indicator of success. It shows reliability and provides a sense of security to the end user. 

Apaliski notes that transaction timing and security are also important measurements of agreement value. For example, if fast payments are required, a developer should consider including real-time payments (RTP) in the workflow. RTP can settle transactions in seconds and make funds available instantly.

“Also, ensuring all parties are secure and the exchange of money occurs between the correct parties plays massively in determining the success of a transaction,” says Apaliski.

Use cases: crypto custody and treasury

Agreements also serve as repositories of value in specialized financial services use cases—such as crypto custody and treasury agreements—with unique requirements, such as multi-signature wallet authorizations, custody terms, or decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) governance proposals.

“The value there is security, transparency, and operational trust,” says Marcos Placona, founder of DevRel Bridge. “When multiple parties need to authorize a transaction or movement of digital assets, the agreement isn’t about revenue—it’s about preventing unauthorized access, ensuring compliance with internal controls, and creating an auditable trail. The faster and more reliably you can execute these agreements, the more confidently institutions and DAOs can operate without sacrificing security.”

Placona notes that, in these cases, the agreement is a conduit to value creation, not the value itself. Once an agreement is completed, the real value starts to compound—from revenue and productivity to compliance and security. 

These are just a few of the use cases and solutions available. Check out Docusign for Developers for the full list. 

Developers can help bridge the gap

Developers are uniquely positioned to collapse the time between promise and value—and it starts with viewing agreements not as documents but as executable workflows.

“The opportunity is in building systems where verification, compliance checks, and approvals happen in parallel with the signing process—not after,” says Placona. “Consider the example of bank account verification. If developers can embed identity verification, anti-money laundering [AML] checks, or wallet validation during the agreement flow using APIs, they remove the post-signature bottleneck entirely. The agreement becomes the trigger for automated fulfillment.”

To meet compliance requirements, developers must build auditability into these integrations from the start. And this is where AI can help accelerate workflows. AI can validate data quality before signing even happens—flagging mismatched addresses or incomplete fields in real time. It can also autoclassify agreement types and route them to the correct compliance workflows without human intervention. Once the signature is completed, AI-driven reconciliation can instantly match payments, update ledgers, and trigger downstream actions—slashing settlement time from days to seconds.

Why financial services developers choose Docusign

Docusign Intelligent Agreement Management (IAM) solves the complexity of agreements with one AI-powered, extensible platform.

Used by 100% of the Fortune 500 financial services companies, Docusign has been recognized by Newsweek as the No. 1 “most trustworthy” software company in America for 2024 and 2025.

With over 1,000+ partner integrations, including key systems like Fiserv, nCino, and Salesforce, Docusign’s developer ecosystem offers seamless extension and customization of workflows. And unlike generic workflow tools, the IAM platform is purpose-built for the complexity of approvals, compliance, and signatures inherent to financial agreements. To learn more about how leading financial services companies are partnering with Docusign to unlock the hidden value in agreements, watch the complete Discover 2025 DevX Panel session.