Verifying your business in Australia

This article details documents that are required for organisations to open an account with Airwallex if your business is registered in Australia.

Verification, known as KYC or ‘Know your customer’, is a process that is required by regulators to offer financial services to organisations and individuals. It involves reviewing and maintaining information on parties that use our financial services.

  1. Entity specific documents
  2. Supporting information including other required documents

Entity specific documents

The documents you will need to provide will depend on your business type. Australian business types include Companies, Trusts or Sole traders and below we have provided details on the documents that are required for each. 

1) Companies

For an Australian Company account, you may need to prepare the document(s) below:

2) Trusts

If you're signing up as a trust, you'll need to provide:

  • a copy of the signed and executed trust deed
  • a copy of the appoint/guardian or principal ID, as well as a copy of the trustees ID

2) Sole traders

For an Australian Sole trader account, you need to prepare the document(s) below:

  • Your Personal ID

Supporting information including required documents

Below we have provided more specific details about the types of documents that you may need to submit as part of the KYC process covering:

  1. Personal Information
  2. Authorisation Letter
  3. Partnership Agreement
  4. Financial Institution Onboarding Questionnaires
  5. Investment Onboarding Questionnaires
  6. Live- Streaming Questionnaire
  7. Marketplace Questionnaire
  8. New Business Supporting Documents

Personal information

Ultimate Beneficial Owner (UBO)

Ultimate Beneficial owner refers to an individual who owns or controls, directly or indirectly, including through a trust or bearer shareholding, more than 25% of the issued share capital of the corporation.

Personal ID 

Please provide a photo image of a valid government-issued ID such as Drivers Licence or Passport.

Some valid ID examples are provided below:

1) Passport - All Countries

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2) Driver's Licence - e.g. Australian sample

AU_id_FR.jpg

AU_ID_ba.jpg

Please note, in some cases, we may also request you provide supplementary ID, such as your Australian Medicare card.

Also, if the UBO, Sole trader or Partner is a Chinese citizen, only Chinese National ID (身份证) is acceptable, and both the front and back side is needed. You can view a sample ID here

Authorisation Letter

Please provide a letter (on a company letterhead) signed by two directors stating that you have the authority to open and act on the account on behalf of the company. If there is only one Director in your company then it is acceptable to only have one signature.

Click here to download the Authorisation Letter example. 

Partnership Agreement

Please provide us with a copy of your partnership agreement. If you do not have a partnership agreement then you download and use the sample below:

Click here to download the Partnership Agreement Letter example. 

Financial Institution Onboarding Questionnaires

  • If the Airwallex account will process funds of your underlying clients, please complete the following questionnaire and provide all requested supporting documents

Click here to download this questionnaire

  • If the Airwallex account will ONLY be used as an operational account (i.e. operational expenses), please complete the following questionnaire and provide all requested supporting documents

Click here to download this questionnaire

Investment Onboarding Questionnaire

  • If the Airwallex account is for a company that will engage in investment activities, please complete the following questionnaire and provide all requested supporting documents

Click here to download this questionnaire

  • If the Airwallex account is for a trust/family trust that will engage in investment activities, please complete the following questionnaire and provide all requested supporting documents

Click here to download this questionnaire

Live- Streaming Questionnaire

If you are operating a Live Streaming business, please complete the following questionnaire in order to meet our internal compliance requirements

Click here to download the Live- Streaming Questionnaire 

Marketplace Questionnaire

If you are operating a Marketplace business, please complete the following questionnaire in order to meet our internal compliance requirements

Click here to download the Marketplace Questionnaire 

New Business Supporting Documents

If your business is just starting out, we understand it can be hard to provide supporting documentation. However, please take a look at the exhaustive list below and see if there are some documents you can supply.

In addition, if there are any documents you can think of that might help us to verify your business that are not on the below list, feel free to supply them also.

  • Contracts for sale;
  • Bank statement showing business operations;
  • Copies of sales or purchase invoices;
  • Pro forma invoices from suppliers;
  • Proof of business insurance;
  • Email communication between you and your suppliers/contractors/freelancers;
  • Amazon / PayPal statements / screenshots;
  • Receipts for software subscriptions, such as AWS or Xero;
  • Proof of owning a website domain;
  • Proof of being registered with an online marketplace (PayPal, Amazon);
  • Business documents and policies to be used (such as Refund or Privacy Policy);
  • A business plan;
  • Utility bills issued in the name of the business (not for sole traders); or;
  • Qualifications, membership of professional organisations, or membership on professional service registers or industry associations.