Verifying your customer's identity

Verification of Identity (VOI) is an Australian Registrars’ National Electronic Conveyancing Council (ARNECC) requirement for banks to verify the identity of their customers prior to registering a mortgage with the state/territory land titles registries.

Verifying a customer’s identity is also necessary for banks to satisfy their Anti-Money Laundering/Counter Terrorism Financing (AML/CTF) obligations.

As part of your agreement with Macquarie, you’ll need to:

• verify your customer’s identity digitally using NextGenID in ApplyOnline. If your customer is unable to digitally verify due to exceptional circumstances, you'll need to contact our team via chat to discuss your customer's manual ID options.
• provide any information or documentation regarding the introduction, identification, or verification of a customer within 72 hours from the time of request.
• retain and be able to retrieve any information or documentation relating to an application for seven years from the date the loan is repaid for auditing purposes.

NextGenID is our digital ID verification method, which is simple and efficient for you and your customer. It's activated from ApplyOnline within an application and typically only requires one photo ID document to meet AML and VOI requirements.

For more information:

• for you, see Using NextGenID - digital identity verification
• for your customer, share with them, Completing digital ID verification for your broker home loan application.

Prior to starting NextGenID, ensure the name on the application for your customer matches the ID document they're providing.

If your customer has used an ID document with a different name to the application, provide a certified copy of their marriage or change of name certificate. See our certification requirements.

Once your customer’s application has been approved and you’re preparing for settlement, the panel solicitors may require further VOI checks to be completed.

Panel solicitors require the name of the applicant to match on the:

• application
• one form of identification
• land title or contract of sale.

When a mismatch is identified the panel solicitor may:

• Complete a change of name request with the land titles office (for refinances) or with the vendor solicitor (for purchases).
• Request a statutory declaration where there are insufficient ID documents to support the change of name.

A statutory declaration or additional certified documents (e.g. change of name, government-issued certificates for marriage or divorce) will be required in the following scenarios.  

Note: If your customer provides the relevant document in the NextGenID experience, the document won't need to be certified.

A statutory declaration will generally not be required in the following scenarios:

Statutory declaration requests arise from Macquarie Bank’s regulatory obligation to take reasonable steps to confirm a person’s identity. In particular, this is where differing variations of a name are present across identity documents or the application, as shown in the Unacceptable name discrepancies table above.

A statutory declaration may be requested:

• by us, due to name discrepancies between the ID documents, the application name and if provided, the land title or contract of sale
• by our panel solicitors, due to name discrepancies between land titles and identification documents.