What identification and information will I need to open a bench account?

As a financial service, we are required to ‘know’ our customers. We carry out a widely-used electronic check called a Know Your Customer check (eKYC) to comply with our regulatory obligations. We do this check at the time of sign-up, by matching your name, address and date of birth against a number of public record databases such as Ideology. This identity check is not a credit check and does not affect your credit score in any way, although it will show as a light address verification on your credit history. 

If you have lived at your address for less than 3 years we may not be able to validate your details online. If there has been a partial match then there will be an email be sent to you providing a link where you can upload your up to date driver’s license or State issued ID. Your address details on these documents must match the address you are using to sign up to our service. 

After this has been uploaded it will then take 24 hours for this information to be verified, you should then receive an email from bench letting you know that you have passed.