A racehorse training, syndication or farm operation is no different to any other business. Healthy owner relations start with providing a smooth on-boarding process when making a sale, and making it easy for your new customer.
It is equally important to verify who your new owner is and their address, and screen them against known watch lists. After all, fraudulent financial transactions, bad debts and money laundering are all bad for business.
Often these objectives are competing in nature. Increasing the requirements on a new customer when making a sale can result in them running away. Loosening those requirements can result in untrustworthy or ineligible owners being accepted.
One way to help you achieve the right balance is to use an identity solution to streamline the capture of customer information and verify your new customer’s details via trusted government sources.
Here are six reasons to use identity verification in the sale of shares in your horses or stallion nominations, before you accept new customers.
1 Comply with Australian Rules of Racing
By verifying the identity of new Owners you can establish proof that your customers are real and over the age of 18. You have an obligation to undertake this due diligence to avoid any suspect individual becoming an Owner, under the Australian Rules of Racing.
2 Increase your ability to collect debts
By verifying the current residential address of new customers and their date of birth, you have greater confidence that debt collection notices (if required) are delivered to the correct address or indeed to the correct person.
3 Combat Money Laundering
The Anti-Money Laundering and Counter Terrorism Financing Act 2006 (AML/CTF Act) imposes an obligation on certain companies (“reporting entities” providing “designated services” under the Act) to detect and deter money laundering and terrorism financing.
If you are an Australian Financial Services Licence (AFSL) holder (or an Authorised Representative of one), dealing in horse racing schemes (racehorse syndication), you must have an AML/CTF Program specifying how you comply with AML/CTF legislation.
Solutions like our Know Your Customer (KYC) solution, support AML Programs and help you comply with AML regulations. Not only it is important to verify who your customer is, but it is equally important to perform AML screening checks against Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs), Fraudulent Activity, Sanctions or Interpol registers.
Laundering funds earned through illegal activities via racehorse ownership or breeding is possible and a risk for all businesses and the industry in general. So in our view, if you are handling sizeable sums of money, you should be implementing the same identity verification and screening procedures.
4 Streamline the ordering process, making it easier and more convenient
Many new customers find paperwork to be a burden, or downright annoying, when making a purchase.
However, with identity verification solutions, new Owners can complete an online form and verify their identity and residential address in a single, automated step.
This eliminates tedious paperwork and simplifies the ordering process. As a result, your business can become both diligent and customer-friendly to be well-placed ahead of your competition.
5 Building customer confidence and rapport
Due to the element of increased security that comes with the state of the art verification solutions, customer trust in your business will solidify. They will feel confident that you are dedicated to safeguarding their identity and that each other customer (or more importantly, each other co-owner in the horse you are selling) has gone through the same rigorous verification.
Imagine being a co-owner in a horse with fake or fraudulent owners. Take responsibility now to secure your reputation and protect your customers.
6 Reduced horse owner or breeder registration errors
Part of the details that identity verification captures is the customer’s residential address and date of birth.
By verifying those details against a range of government and independent data sources, you can catch any errors that may have been entered during their personal data entry.
Technology has made it a breeze to gather customer information and verify customer identities
Learn more about how our Know Your Customer (KYC) service helps protect your business
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