The Bankers Solution to Customer Identification
Straight Simple Reliable
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Compliance Obligations
Almost all countries in the world have based their national Anti Money Laundering (AML) laws on the 40 recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (©FATF/OECD).

The Responsability for the Financial Institutes to verify the integrity of a presented passport is clearly formulated in Chapter B, Par. "Due Diligence" under Recommendation 5a.

The Obligation to keep records of the obtained identification data is described in Recommendation 10.

Sanctions
Failure to employ best practice to comply to FATF/OECD Recommendations may lead to high penalty fines or other sanctions from the Industry's Supervisory Authorities.

Reputational Risk
Non Compliance to FATF/OECD Recommendations may lead to exposed reputational risk.

Financial Losses
The acceptance of irregular passports always lead to financial losses. Identity Theft has become a very costly issue to the banking industry as well as to national economies. Financial losses due to Identity Theft amounted up to GBP 600 Million to U.K. banks in 2003 and cost the Canadian economy more than CAD 2.5 Billion per year.

Globalisation
This process leads to an increase of foreigners wanting to establish business relations. The disapearance of efficient border control, demands for an increased verification of id-documents on POS level.