In April 2025, we released updated guidance to help you support customers who may not be able to provide standard identification documents when accessing financial services.

Customers may be unable to provide standard identification documents if they are:

• from diverse backgrounds
• facing challenging circumstances
• experiencing vulnerability.

The guidance will help you develop and implement policies to assist these customers, while managing your money laundering and terrorism financing (ML/TF) risks and meeting your anti-money laundering and counter-terrorism financing (AML/CTF) obligations.

Read the updated guidance at Assisting customers who don’t have standard forms of identification.

Key information in this guidance

You must consider the ML/TF risks of accepting alternative identification, take reasonable steps to make sure the customer is who they say they are, and take appropriate steps to mitigate and manage any additional risk from relying on alternative identification.

It is important that you document your alternative identification procedures before applying them to customers, to apply these procedures consistently. 

The guidance includes examples of alternative identification options you may use depending on the circumstances and ML/TF risks. It also provides some specific examples to help you assist:

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander customers
• customers affected by family and domestic violence
• customers affected by a natural disaster
• customers in prison or recently released from prison
• intersex, transgender or gender diverse customers.

It is also important to keep records of any alternative identification procedures you used and how you identified the customer. 

What’s new in the guidance

The updates to the guidance include: 

• a new section on the importance of financial inclusion
• clearer steps on how to use the procedures
• clarification that alternative identification can be used for customers who are not low ML/TF risk. You must take steps to manage and reduce the ML/TF risks.
• more information on managing the risks of accepting alternative identification, without placing undue burden on the customer
• recently expired identification can be used as a form of alternative identification
• alternative identification can continue to be relied on when a customer faces systemic and long term barriers to accessing standard identification (i.e. long term homelessness)
• other methods that could be used to accept referee statements, such as video.

Further information

Visit our website for more information about customer identification and verification.