Originally Posted by notime

My best educated guess would be: "Know your customer". A new thing dictated by many goverments towards ANY financial institutions like banks, creditcard companies, mortgage companies, etc.

I had to send my copy ID to epass a while ago. Then the banks I use wanted to see me in their office with my drivers license and passport for identifiction (after 25 years of using the same bank...). Also Mastercard and Visa asked me to to that and even send a copy of the company ownership regarding shares / notary office papers behind the company registration in the chamber of commerce. I had no problems with that at all but it was some work to copy paperwork and send it to them.