What types of businesses can apply for an account with Aspire Australia?

Aspire Australia currently supports the following Australian entity types:

The documents required to open an Aspire account depend on your business type and complexity. This page summarises the documents we collect for each entity type to comply with Australia's Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorism Financing (AML/CTF) Rules administered by AUSTRAC.

For a domestic proprietary company, the key information we collect and verify includes:

Discretionary trusts (often called family trusts) are unregulated by ASIC, so the Trust Deed is the primary verification document. For a discretionary trust, the key information we collect and verify includes:

If a trustee is a domestic proprietary company, we will also collect and verify the information about that trustee as set out in the domestic proprietary company section. If a trustee is an individual, we will also collect and verify the information set out in the UBO/Controller section.

As a sole trader, the individual and the business are legally the same entity. Identity verification of the individual also serves as business verification. For a sole trader, the key information we collect and verify includes:

In Australia, partnerships are not separately incorporated. Verification of a partnership mainly comes from the Partnership Agreement (or a certified copy/extract). For a partnership, the key information we collect and verify includes:

Identity verification documents

For each individual who we need to identify (such as admin users, directors, UBOs, Controllers, sole traders, partners, and individual trustees), the key information we collect and verify includes their: full name, date of birth, residential address, ID number, ID expiration date, nationality, ownership/control percentage, and proof of address (where the individual’s nationality is a prohibited country).

For Australian individuals, we accept the following ID documents:

Foreign Passports are also accepted for non-Australian individuals (e.g. directors or UBOs based overseas). All ID documents must be valid and not expired.

Identity verification is performed electronically via our trusted service providers such as Onfido, which includes using Australia's Document Verification Service (DVS) and other identity verification data sources.

A UBO is any individual who directly or indirectly holds 25% or more of ownership or control of the entity. If no individual qualifies as a UBO based on ownership, we identify the Controller - the individual who exercises control through a board, committee, appointor, or by position rather than by shareholding.

How UBOs and Controllers are identified depends on entity type:

A Letter of Authorisation (LOA) is required where the user opening the account is doing so on behalf of a company, but is not a director of that company. The LOA is a signed document authorising that user to open and operate the Aspire account on behalf of the company. Signing requirements:

A new LOA is required whenever a new non-director admin is added or a control person changes.

For all entity types that are companies, we collect the following information for every registered director: full name, date of birth, nationality, country of residence, and ID number. Valid ID and a liveness check are required for at least one director.

Where your company has both an Australian Business Number (ABN) and Australian Company Number (ACN), we prefer to collect the ABN. If your company does not have an ABN, the ACN alone is sufficient. If your business does not have an ABN, we may ask you to explain why you are operating a business without an ABN.

No, not necessarily, as we will collect the initial information we need about the shareholders of your company from ASIC. We might need to ask for more information about any shareholder who is a UBO.

For example: where a corporate shareholder holds 25% or more, we look through to the ultimate individual(s) at the top of the chain. Where a trust holds 25% or more, we additionally apply our Trust due diligence to that trust and request the Trust Deed to identify the UBO.

If no individual holds 25% or more of your business, we identify a Controller, the individual who exercises ultimate control by other means, such as through a board, committee, appointor, or by position. For a domestic proprietary company, this is typically evidenced via a Disclosure Certificate (Company Declaration) and/or a Company Org Chart. The Controller is verified to the same standard as a UBO.

For all entity types that are companies, director information must be collected for the customer entity. We record the full name, date of birth, nationality, country of residence, and ID number of every director. For verification purposes, a valid ID for at least one director must be on file, and a liveness check via Onfido is required. (Note: this applies to directors of the customer entity itself, not to directors of corporate shareholders, who are addressed through our look-through process for UBOs.)

For discretionary trusts, non-discretionary trusts typically only specify classes of beneficiaries rather than a defined list of named individuals. Because there is no individual who 'owns' 25% or more of the trust assets, we instead identify the appointor of the trust as the Controller, and verify their identity.

The appointor is a person who has the power to appoint the trustees to the trust. The name of the appointor is usually found in the trust deed. The trust deed might describe the “appointor” as something else such as a “guardian”, “controller”, “nominator”, “protector” or “principal”.

Settlor identity verification is generally required only where the material asset contribution at the time the trust was established exceeded $10,000. This is rarely the case, so we often do not have to verify the identity of the settlor.

The Partnership Agreement (or a certified copy/extract) is the primary verification document for partnerships. Where a formal Partnership Agreement is unavailable, a Disclosure Certificate (Entity Declaration) can support verification. We may also rely on reliable independent electronic data sources.