The future is digital, but stick to the hard stuff for now

Digital ID’s are fantastic….most of the time. But there is one good reason why the old-fashioned plastic is still pretty good.

The recent changes by some state & federal government departments to digitising their cards is fantastic! Anything to avoid another plastic card in the bulging wallet is a good thing. 

And there are a bunch of cool benefits too: simplicity, less plastic and reducing waste are 3 of the better reasons. Let alone better security.

Medicare offers digital cards for us all and digital drivers’ licences are now available in NSW, SA and QLD, with other states expected to follow shortly too.

Even most health funds, as well as your bank, all offer digital cards, which is just so handy and makes life so much easier. However, when you need a home loan for that new house or changing banks for a lower rate on your mortgage, the digital ID isn’t going to fly right now….…and (for once) it isn’t quite the banks’ fault.

You see, there's a bit of a legal catch when it comes to client ID for the banks because they've got to follow two different sets of laws: one from the Federal Government for anti-money laundering and another from the State Governments for land title laws. 

And whilst each set of laws has broadly similar requirements in terms of what type ID is required (Driver’s Licence, Medicare, Passport etc), the format that they can be in may differ. Not all are accepting the digital card, which is a bit disappointing.

So whilst some government departments are issuing digital cards, other departments in the same government are requiring a hard copy of the same card for identification purposes!

Sounds crazy, right? And in reality, it actually is. But it’s just because there is a transition between the digitising of our ID documents and how they can be accepted under current laws.

The future is definitely going to be digital, but maybe hold off on cutting up those hard copy cards just yet, or even just requesting just the digital versions.

For now our message is to ‘stick to the hard stuff’.

Just make sure you have sufficient, current and original ID ready so your verification of identity does not hold up your property settlement or refinance. And maybe (one day) all the government departments will play nicely and talk to each other.