Most countries have adopted Anti-Money Laundering legislation and regulations to ensure that organisations which handle client money and/or advise on financial transactions have in place procedures to ‘Know Your Customer’ and to undertake ‘Customer Due Diligence’ (‘CDD’).
In the UK for example; most if not all of the financial services firms with whom you deal will need to be compliant with, inter alia, Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, Terrorism Act 2000 and Money Laundering Regulations 2007. One of the key elements of this is CDD.
Regulation 5 says that CDD comprises
Identification and verification
Identification of a client or a beneficial owner is simply being told or coming to know a client’s identifying details, such as their name and address.
Verification is obtaining some evidence which supports this claim of identity.
Verification Systems will verify your personal information and provide information to your financial services provider, solicitor, accountant, etc. to the standard required by the Regulations.