Why we removed the PDF application form
Our old onboarding asked a prospective agent to download a form, print it, sign it, scan it and email it back. We measured what that actually asks of someone, and rebuilt it.
Until recently, becoming a Lukeport agent started with a download. Four documents: an application form, a KYC form, a standard agreement and an account opening form. The instruction was to print them, complete them by hand, sign, scan and return them.
Consider who we were asking. Almost every prospective agent reaches us on a phone. Many are on a metered connection. Very few have a printer within walking distance, and the ones who do are paying per page at a business centre, along with the scan, and the data to send it back.
What we were really charging
The form was free. Completing it was not. Before we had learned anything about an applicant, we were asking them to spend a trip, a fee and most of a morning, with no indication of whether they would qualify. Predictably, the people most likely to give up at that step were the ones in exactly the places our network needs to reach.
A requirement that only some applicants can meet is a filter. Ours was filtering for proximity to a printer.
What replaced it
Four short steps, completed on a phone, with the requirements published before the first field.
- Who you are: name, phone, email
- Where you would trade: state, LGA, and what kind of premises
- Identification: the document type you hold and your BVN
- Banking: the settlement account the counter will run against
Nothing is asked twice. Progress is visible. Every applicant gets a reference number and is told what happens next and roughly when, which is the part the PDF never did.
Written by Lukeport · Published 27 May 2026