Lara Paholski: new AML laws will hit every QLD property professional in 2026

In episode 28 of Raising the Bar, George Sourris from Empire Legal sits down with Lara Paholski, CEO of LiveSign, to unpack the biggest regulatory change facing Queensland property professionals in more than a decade.

With AML/CTF Tranche 2 reforms commencing from 01 July 2026, lawyers, conveyancers, accountants and real estate agents will all face new obligations around identity verification, customer due diligence and anti-money laundering compliance.

As the CEO of one of Australia's leading verification of identity providers, Lara has spent years helping property professionals navigate digital identity, fraud prevention and compliance. In this episode, she breaks down what is changing, why it matters and what businesses need to do now.

We cover:

- Verification of Identity (VOI): what VOI actually is, how modern identity verification works, the role of biometrics and government-issued IDs, common fraud risks in property transactions and why secure digital verification is becoming increasingly important.

- AML Tranche 2: what the new anti-money laundering laws mean for lawyers, conveyancers, accountants and real estate agents, how prepared the industry really is and the practical steps businesses should be taking before the reforms commence.

- What it means for buyers and sellers: the additional checks clients can expect, why more questions will be asked throughout the transaction process and how these reforms are designed to better protect consumers and the property industry from fraud and financial crime.

If you work in real estate, conveyancing, law, finance or property, this episode is essential listening ahead of the AML/CTF changes and a valuable guide to understanding the future of compliance in Queensland property.

Contact Livesign: https://www.live-sign.com/resources/help
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More podcast episodes: https://empirelegal.com.au/podcast/
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Website: https://empirelegal.com.au/

Transcript

George Sourris

On the 1st of July, just a few weeks from now, the entire property and legal industry in Queensland changes forever.

Lawyers, conveyancers, and real estate agents will all be captured by the new anti-money laundering laws. Most of them have no idea what's coming, what they need to do, or how much trouble they're in if they get it really wrong. Today on Raising the Bar, we sit down with the CEO of LiveSign, the woman who has been preparing this industry for this exact moment, Lara Paholski.

Welcome.

Lara Paholski

Thank you, George. Thank you for having me.

George Sourris

Did I get your last name right?

Lara Paholski

You did.

George Sourris

Beautiful. Perfect. Beautiful. All right. So Raising the Bar, this podcast, we storytelling excellence in Queensland property because the industry deserves better. So your business is spectacular. We've been working with you guys for years in the LiveSign side of things, which we're going to talk through as well.

So thank you for building a great piece of tech that helps us verify our client's identity.

Lara Paholski

Thank you for trusting in LiveSign. We're glad we've delivered.

George Sourris

It's been a really great journey, especially the passport scanning part, the little chip, which we'll, dive into a bit more. We will. I think that's my favorite feature.

VOICEOVER   Welcome to the Raising the Bar podcast, where we story tell excellence in Queensland Property. I'm your host, George Sourris from Empire Legal.

George Sourris

So, you're the CEO of LiveSign, a platform built on over two decades of expertise from professionals spanning legal services, digital identity, and industry innovation. LiveSign won the eSignature Solution of the Year Award at the Legal Tech Breakthrough Awards, and has built a reputation as the gold standard for verification of identity in Australian property transactions.

LiveSign helps practitioners be absolutely certain of who is behind a digital signature, something increasingly important in today's environment. As I said, at Empire Legal, we've used LiveSign for VOI for our clients for many years, and today Lara herself is here to talk to us about something every agent, conveyancer, and lawyer in Queensland can't afford to ignore.

How does that all sound?

Lara Paholski

Sounds great. Yeah, I don't know. It sounds a little bit, bit of a special introduction there, George - but thank you very much.

George Sourris

All good. We're going to break this down into three main sections. So I might just kick off with the first part, and yeah, off we go. Okay. So we'll start with VOI, Verification Of Identity, why it matters, and why people are still getting it wrong.

So if we just zoom all the way out, what is VOI, and maybe what isn't VOI?

And then we'll get into the, the meatier stuff after that.

Lara Paholski

That sounds great. Okay. If we start with what is VOI? So, verification of identity. So as you guys know, George, at Empire Legal, conveyancers and lawyers for over a decade now, around about 12 years, have been having to meet verification of identity rules.

Have been put in by ARNECC so a national body that regulates the national e-conveyancing, in Australia. Yep. And it's administered by the state titles. So what it actually means, VOI, quite simply put, is verification of identity, or making sure and identifying that you know who the person is that you're actually dealing with and is involved in that transaction.

George Sourris

Yes.

Lara Paholski

And it does cause a little bit of confusion with anti-money laundering coming. It's not AML and CTF rules. It delves into it, and there is some crossover.

And as part of AML, people will still, and practitioners will still need to verify who the identity is of the person that they're dealing with.

George Sourris

Yes.

Lara Paholski

AML takes things a step further where you're looking at the nature of the transaction and the person involved in that transaction, whereas VOI, we're quite simply trying to identify who that person is involved in the transaction.

George Sourris

Okay. So yes, let's just zoom in on the VOI part of it, 'cause we're going to talk about the anti-money laundering stuff in a bit.

So quite simply, literally like its name suggests, verifying the identity. So it'd be fair to say then, I know I've experienced it myself over the past nearly decade in the industry, we've come a long way as an industry, haven't we? From what it was to what it is now, and it's about to get even better I guess.

Lara Paholski

Oh, absolutely. If we think back to...yeah, I was a co-founder of a digital identity company, when PEXA was coming online, over a decade ago back in 2014.

George Sourris

Yeah.

Lara Paholski

And the industry back then didn't, you know, they weren't even using anything digital really.

The, it was a leap of faith to jump onto the platform that we all know now as PEXA, and conduct doing things like verification of identity and other compliance rules that they had to meet in a digital way. So it was a leap of faith. Now, you'd be hard-pressed to find a practitioner, whether that be a real estate agent, lawyer or conveyancer, who's not at least willing to lean in to doing things in a more digital way.

It's, it's now norm.

George Sourris

Yes. And to that point, I mean, just speaking from my experience in the industry. When I first started about a decade ago, I would go, and I still do this, I go around to all the real estate offices and do, like, up skill, like what laws are changing, what do you need to be aware of so that you don't come unstuck.

Lara Paholski

Mm-hmm.

George Sourris

It was so common, even like- even five years ago, maybe less, where people weren't even getting VOIs, like the agents of their clients full stop. And we were on a bit of a, a preaching mission, I guess, to explain to them, "You really need to get at least a copy of some government issued ID." Now I think it's more common that platforms like LiveSign exist and are being adopted.

But I'm talking, you know, half a decade ago, people weren't even getting copies of ID, and that was happening everywhere.

Lara Paholski

Mm. And given, George, it's a really good point that you make. Given the amount of money that is involved in property transactions, it's usually always hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, it is hard to comprehend that a practitioner as part of their own due diligence doesn't want to know and confirm that that is the person that they're dealing with is who they say they are.

George Sourris

Yeah.

Lara Paholski

Yeah. So, so now I think, yeah, people's minds have shifted a lot, but you're right, even only five years ago, not everyone was really leaning into it like they should've been.

George Sourris

I would say it was like cowboy country. And what was good is coming out of a presentation like that, explaining the why behind it, which put simply, the lens that, that I will always say is, if something was to go wrong with this property transaction, it ends up in court, you get summoned up and the judge says, "What steps did you take to verify the vendor's identity or even the buyer's identity?"

And you say yeeah, well they said they were who they say they were. You're in big trouble.

Yes. Whereas if you've got things like passport, driver's license, you know, all that sort of stuff, you got some pretty good ammo to be like, "No, I did take reasonable steps." Which is where this is all, I guess, come to, right?

To where we are today.

Lara Paholski

Yes, absolutely.

George Sourris

Yeah.

Lara Paholski

And as I mentioned before, George, lawyers and conveyancers have been having to meet some very strict, rigid, however you want to word it, verification of identity rules, under ARNECC's framework.

George Sourris

Yes.

Lara Paholski

For verification of identity through the model participation rules.

Real estate agents have been doing verification of identity to varying standards, depending on the jurisdiction. But now with AML coming in, they too will absolutely need to make sure they are verifying the identity of their clients as part of AML.

George Sourris

Yeah, yeah. Whereas it's not a "nice to have", it's a "you must" or there's going to be repercussions.

Lara Paholski

That's right. Whereas I think the leap for conveyancers and lawyers into meeting the VOI component of AML will be a little bit less than it will be for agents, simply because, as I said, they've been having to do it to such a strict standard for more than a decade already.

George Sourris

Yeah, yeah, that higher standards already existed.

Lara Paholski

Already existed.

George Sourris

And look, I mean, the adjustment even from when we didn't have a system like yours, like we were old school at the start saying, "Look, you need a JP or a solicitor or a ComDec to come and, you know, we need originals." It was a bit of a process.

Lara Paholski

Yep.

George Sourris

To go from that to digital, I think it's better.

One, it's safer and more secure. There's less margin for error. And two, I want you to explain a little bit, if that's okay, about, say that passport chip thing I was talking about. Because when we did the demo originally and we met you guys, that blew me away. Once that was done, I'm like, "man, we shouldn't even be offering the face-to-face VOI, unless we really have to," because it's a faster, better, easier, safer solution to use a product like yours.

Lara Paholski

Yes. Can I employ you as my BDM, George?

George Sourris

But I think it's important 'cause- Summed it up beautifully ... you know what? If we talk about verification of identity, it's maybe not like the sexiest topic out there, right?

No. Similar to conveyancing, right? That is

Lara Paholski

correct.

George Sourris

But it's, it is important. So I think the point of difference that you guys have with your offering, I'd love for the, whoever's listening out there to understand a bit more about it.

Lara Paholski

Thank you, George. Appreciate that. And look, you're right, it's not fun.

We try to make it fun. But we also try to make it compliant, and offer a solution of the highest possible standard. So what we offer at LiveSign, as you guys are very familiar with, is a digital platform in which real estate agents, lawyers and conveyancers can verify the identity of their clients.

And how do we do that? Well, we really take the guessing, or, or practitioners having to do a lot of the guesswork and hoping that it is the person, and we give them the tools to do it really quickly, efficiently, and securely, which is better for them and their clients.

So in reality, and really simply, how does that work?

You initiate a text message and a email that goes to your client. From there, they can simply do the verification of identity themselves in the comfort of their own home or come in here and do it in your office as well.

They take a photo of the passport and then lay their phone on the passport. But unlike other providers, what we're not doing is just taking a photo of that passport data and scraping that data off the passport page. We're actually extracting it out of the chip in a passport. Most passports have a chip.

Not everyone may know that, but they do. And so we leverage NFC technology to extract the raw data out of the chip. So it's just the same data that's on that passport page, but we're pulling it out of the chip, and including the rendered photo. And what that actually brings is firstly, data accuracy There's no scraping the data and reading an O as a zero or something like that.

George Sourris

Yeah, a typo.

Lara Paholski

Yeah, correct. No typo. No misreads. It's 100% accurate every single time. And that means far less flags than other providers out there in the results that come back into the practitioner, being the real estate agent or the conveyancer.

George Sourris

So you have a feed to the proper, like, government.

However this works, it's, like, verified.

Lara Paholski

Absolutely. Yeah, which is amazing. And that leads me ... and that's a really good point, George. That leads me into the next main benefit of leveraging this chipped NFC technology. By reading the chip, we're actually able to authenticate passports from over 170 countries.

Okay. So if you have clients in, America, China, in anywhere just outside of Australia, in most jurisdictions or, or countries around the world, we can actually authenticate their passports, which again, most providers can't. So it's really got.....I didn't know

George Sourris

you did that. Yeah. I thought it was Australia only.

So there you go. No. No. That's

Lara Paholski

wild Global coverage-

George Sourris

170 countries.

Lara Paholski

Yes, over 170 Yeah, that's unreal. Very cool. So global coverage, data accuracy. It's a really nice elegant also platform for the client to use. They then, under ARNECC standards anyway, will need to get a second form of ID. Often that's a license.

They literally take a photo of that. We get the data from that. There's no NFC technology available that we can use for that, but we get that data, and then they literally take a selfie. Again, it's a really nice elegant experience. Lots of providers you need to move your head around and do all of this.

Ours is a passive liveness test. In that process, we're checking there's literally a pulse. We're checking all the biometrics of their face, and we're matching it then against the biometrics of the face, that's coming out of the government-issued IDs, and we are then confirming whether that is a match and it is the same person that they're saying that is, and we'll notify you, as a lawyer, conveyancer, real estate agent, of that match and if there's anything to be concerned about.

George Sourris

Yeah. Well, what I thought was really cool is I remember we, we were playing around with it in the early days, and if you take, like, a, a photo of a photo, it's smart enough to flag going, "hey, this may need further investigation."

Lara Paholski

Absolutely.

George Sourris

Because that's really

Lara Paholski

cool. And, and yeah, that's some of the other technology for anti-spoofing that we're using.

We're not just assuming that that license hasn't been tampered with or isn't fraudulent. So we're doing a whole range of anti-spoofing detection mevers- measures to make sure that it hasn't been tampered with. Yeah, the liveness test, the, a whole lot of tests that we're doing and running in milliseconds.

George Sourris

And the kicker, the kicker is also it's cost-effective.

Lara Paholski

Absolutely.

George Sourris

Like, it's under $20 or something,

Lara Paholski

isn't it? Yeah. Like, how much is it currently? So currently for our verification of identity, $16. When AML comes in, we're literally only adding $5 to that. For the AML component? For the AML component.

Sorry, yes. Yeah. So to, to take that up to $21. That's for conveyancers and lawyers who have to capture two IDs under the ARNECC rules. Yep. For real estate agents, it will be slightly cheaper, because under AML rules they will only have to capture one photo ID. Well, there you go. So that's $10 for them for the VOI component as it stands today, again, adding $5, so it will be $15 for agents.

Great. And unlike George, most other providers, we're actually not putting handcuffs around our clients where they need to lock into subscriptions for 18 months, two years, three years. Pay monthly subscription fees, lock-in terms, and the list goes on. We lead, and I am a very strong believer in leading with our people and our product.

We don't want to put handcuffs around our clients. I'd hate to think clients are staying because they're, you know, feeling they have to or they're forced and they become resentful. So we'll always lead with our product and our people, and it's a per transaction model, is what we'll be implementing and offering for AML/VOI.

George Sourris

Yeah, well it speaks mountains to, I guess, you and your business as a brand, right? It's a very similar thing that Antonia Mercorella from REIQ said with her members. She goes, "I don't want them to feel like they have to be a member in order to get the benefit of what the REIQ offers." Yes. It's a similar thing.

Like, you've got a great product, you've got a great voice in the market, and you find your people. The right people will go, "oh, great." Like us, for example, like, we've chosen to use you guys for the anti-money laundering stuff. Mm-hmm. And that's because we trust you. And then when you said it was an extra $5, I'm like, "Oh man, this is amazing."

"Like, this is great."

Lara Paholski

Yeah. Well, we thought, we need to be able to service our clients in a really cost-effective way. It needs to deliver on the product side and compliance and support, and everything else that we offer, and I think we're renowned for. And it does, but we, we most certainly didn't want to have to make sure you're paying monthly subscription fees and locking you into these unnecessary contracts.

It's complete, you know, in my view, overkill. And as I said, we proudly lead with our product and our people.

George Sourris

Yeah, that's great. That's great. Yep. We'll go more into the AML stuff in just a tick. Yep. But just to, to put a bit of a bow, I guess, on this VOI section, the thing I love about it is we give clients the option of either using you guys, or

coming to see us.

Lara Paholski

Yes.

George Sourris

We used to allow the option where they could go and see, like, a JP or a ComDec, but we found quite often that it wasn't compliant, because they'd go and get, like, a pharmacist, or a police officer, which isn't a qualified witness in our jurisdiction. Mm-hmm. It's cheaper for them to do it at home on the couch in the comfort of their home.

By the time they come to one of our offices and drive and pay for petrol and park and all that stuff, it's more cost effective and faster just to sit at home and do it your way.

Lara Paholski

It, it is.

George Sourris

I think anyway.

Lara Paholski

It's convenient for them. They can do it when they can outside of work, or any time, day or night.

We've also got online support, in terms of chats on there that they can go into with knowledge bases we've actually built ourselves. Yeah If they get stuck on, "Yeah, I've done my license. What other ID can I use?" They can just tap away anytime, 24 hours a day to get that support, along with our team are always there during business hours for support as well.

But even if they come in here, George, might have an elderly person who, funnily enough, we actually find that they're pretty good at doing it themselves. But if, for instance, you have someone that wants to come into your office, you can simply sit with them and still use LiveSign in the office, to do the VOI/AML checks, and then you've got everything consolidated and stored in one central spot.

George Sourris

Yes. Yeah. Yes. And look, the whole point of this chat isn't a plug for you guys. It just so happens that we have a great relationship- We do ... and I think your offering is exceptional.

Lara Paholski

Thanks,

George Sourris

George. But for the listeners out there, especially maybe agents, again, the conveyancers and the solicitors probably already have a system and a process, or if they d- they, they should.

Yeah. If they don't, that's a bit of a red flag. A concern. But with all these... Nothing to see here. With all these changes coming, in 1st of July for the anti-money laundering, say you're an agent, one thing to consider, at least in my opinion, is the, the red tape of doing it the, say, the "old school" way, where you have to come in and get it certified and be a ComDec or solicitor, all that stuff- That really is quite a process and there's a lot more margin for error. Whereas a, a solution that you guys offer, you know it's compliant.

Like, the ... I know that if we get it back and we look at it and we give it the tick, we don't have to think about that anymore, and our settlement's not going to come unstuck at the 11th hour. And if and when we get audited, we're confident that that part of it is taken care of.

Lara Paholski

Yes, absolutely. There's a lot of benefits, I think, for both yourselves and the clients using a LiveSign or whatever platform that people might use.

It literally, if people are having to come into the office, it's time-consuming. You are having to make judgment calls around, is that, does that face- Yeah ... actually match that passport? I mean, even border control forces, there's global studies out there where we know border control forces who are trained to do this all day every day still miss an imposter,

and that's what they're trained to do. So, for real estate agents out there, what, it's can be hard, or for anyone, the human eye to have to make those judgment calls. We say, "Don't carry that risk or take on that burden. Let us help you do that." Yes. And you'll have everything done in a much more, you know, secure, quicker way.

And if you get audited, you're not rummaging around thinking, "God, where did I save that?" Or, you're also not risking your firm, in terms of reputational damage because if things aren't stored securely, as we know, it can come back to, to be quite dangerous, for identity fraud reasons, et cetera, for your clients.

So it gives your clients assurance too that you've partnered with someone that, is a specialist in that area and has all the certifications. It's storing data securely in Australia, all of those things, and it's not, you know, been photocopied and left in offices which can be really risky and come back to bite the agency at the end of the day.

George Sourris

On that, you've raised one more good point, and then I want to move on to the next part. But- Yep ... just quickly, you guys do this cool thing where it, like, blurs out the sensitive information, right? Do you want to just very briefly explain what that is? Yeah. Because I'd never seen that done before. To the point you're talking about with if someone gets hacked or if data gets leaked, protecting the identity of all the clients.

Lara Paholski

Yes. I'm glad you raised it, George. So not only do we securely store that in Australian-hosted servers here in Australia, and we're ISO certified and all those things that banks and people like us need to be, we actually give clients the option to store, so you being our client, Empire Legal, you have the option to store your clients' verification or identity data with us in a way that if an identity theft got their hands on that, it's near on, or is useless to them.

They could not steal- that identity if it fell into, or, or use it for fraudulent reasons if it fell into the wrong hands. So what we do is we give our clients the option to blur the personal identifiable information, more commonly known as, I'm sure lots of people have heard, PII information of your client, and it's blurred out.

So we'll blur out key bits of information. There'll be enough there that if you got audited, you can absolutely see that the VOI was conducted, and we can actually retract and get back the full unblurred version, clear view copy as required.

George Sourris

Which that lives on your side nice

Lara Paholski

and safe.

Correct, not yours. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't have to worry or carry that risk. In the meantime, you can give assurance to your clients who rightly so are worried these days how their identity information is being stored, that it's actually blurred, it's being redacted, and should it fall into the wrong hands, no harm can come.

George Sourris

This is something that I think people don't worry, stress, even think about until it's a problem. Like they, "Oh, yeah, yeah, VOI, it's all good. We've got their ID." And then if a cyber incident happens and if this compromising data gets out, it's only then when you go, "I really wish I had a better process for that."

Lara Paholski

Yes.

George Sourris

So this just takes the headache away.

Lara Paholski

It, it does.

George Sourris

It's one less thing to worry about. Yeah. Like that's, that's, that's VOI. So and that's been the core business of Livesign for forever. Years. Yeah. And now, let's pivot onto the flavor of the month. Ah. The topic of the month. AML/CTF, for those new to the game, that stands for Anti-Money Laundering, Counter-Terrorism Funding.

Lara Paholski

Finance, yes.

George Sourris

Uh, Financing. Yes. Yep. Sorry. Yes, yes. Yep. So basically AML/CTF, that's the change coming 1st of July, so it's only weeks away at the time of this recording.

Lara Paholski

Mm-hmm.

George Sourris

I'd say it is the elephant in the room. I reckon a lot of people have buried their heads in the sand thinking, "I'll deal with it later."

Yeah. Which is probably a similar tune to how some operators looked at the Seller's Disclosure rollout. They just thought, "I'll deal with it later." But reality check, it's here. It's around the corner.

Lara Paholski

It is.

George Sourris

Right? So can you just explain out there to whoever's listening a real simple version of- what it is, and then we'll talk about what we need to do as practitioners.

Because we get a lot of agents, Queensland agents that listen to the podcast as well. But just, like, 30 second to a minute version, because I know it's so complicated. Yeah, it is. I just want to keep it real simple.

Lara Paholski

Yeah, sure.

George Sourris

Yeah.

Lara Paholski

So Australia for many years has been lagging in terms of having a number, or, or the property market, been a target, call it, for criminals to launder money through and conduct illegal activities, because it hasn't been legalise or to do checks in the same way that it has been done in other global jurisdictions.

So that now, conveyancers, lawyers, real estate agents under AUSTRAC, the national regulator, they have had to fall into line, so to take Australia off these global watch lists. Wild - it, it is. You think Australia- It

George Sourris

really

Lara Paholski

is ...

George Sourris

you think we're at the- We're safe ... our medicine's amazing, everything's amazing.

You think we're lagging behind the Western world, and the rest of the whole world really with- We

Lara Paholski

are ...

George Sourris

with this.

Lara Paholski

We, we've got to meet and come up from where we've been operating. So banks have been doing this for years, as we know, under AUSTRAC, the federal regulator, as I said, under tranche one rules.

Now, tranche two, AUSTRAC are bringing tranche two in, and, reporting entities that fall under that are now going to be conveyancing firms, law firms, accountants, real estate agents. From July 1, even if they have been doing verification or identity checks or confirming the identity of their client, they're going to have to delve, George, a little bit more into the nature of the transaction- and the individual that they're dealing with. And think about things like, and do checks like, are they a politically exposed person? Politically exposed persons can be more susceptible to corruption. More susceptible-

George Sourris

Yes ...

Lara Paholski

to it. Yes. Where are source of funds actually coming from?

What's the source of funds? Bag of

George Sourris

cash.

Lara Paholski

Correct.

George Sourris

Because we've had a couple over the years where it's like, "Oh, I'll bring you the cash." And we're like, "Oh, you c..." It's not that you can't, it's that we have chosen not to, because there's a threshold, right? And if it's over that threshold, it has to be reported to AUSTRAC.

Lara Paholski

Yes.

George Sourris

Yeah.

Lara Paholski

Yes, that's right.

George Sourris

It's like $10,000- Yeah, $10,000 ... is ringing a bell. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so we made a decision on day one going, we're not collecting anyone's cash. Not, not to collect it. They can go to the bank because- Yeah ... I believe the bank has the same obligation, right?

Lara Paholski

They do.

George Sourris

So nope, we're outsourcing that to the bank.

Lara Paholski

Well done.

George Sourris

Yeah.

Lara Paholski

Well done, and I, I'd say that's a good way to play it.

George Sourris

Yeah.

Lara Paholski

So yeah, VOI, we've been con- for many years, people have been confirming the identity of the client. Anti-money laundering checks now mean we're looking more at the nature of the transaction, and we're checking if there's anything to be concerned about in the transaction itself, and that individual.

Is something not adding up? Does something not feel right in the transaction? You might need to delve into things a little bit more deeply than you have previously. But I'm so pleased to say that for many practitioners out there, this is actually building upon what you guys have already been doing for years, and we'll get into that.

George Sourris

It's not, it, it's not super scary. It's

Lara Paholski

not.

George Sourris

It's, look, it's a little bit more- When you break it down ... red tape. It's a little bit, it's a new process And from what I've heard, AUSTRAC have basically said, "Look, if you're doing all the right stuff, you, it's going to be okay." Absolutely. They're only out to punish the ones that are going to bury their head in the sand and not even try, come next month when we have to start doing these extra steps.

Yep. Is that fair to say?

Lara Paholski

Absolutely. Yeah. You've taken the words right out my mouth. So Brendan Thomas, the CEO of AUSTRAC, has been really clear in saying, "We are not out to get the real estate agents, the lawyers, and the conveyancers. We're out to get the criminals."

George Sourris

Yeah, well

Lara Paholski

said. You know? That's a good way to put it.

George Sourris

Yeah.

Lara Paholski

That's, that's quite simply his-

George Sourris

That's

Lara Paholski

its purpose ... what he's been saying. Yeah. Absolutely. Yep,

George Sourris

yep,

Lara Paholski

yep. So, in saying that, can you sit there with your head under the rug and pretend this is not coming and someone else can deal with it? Absolutely not. You do need to be making solid steps to become compliant and doing your best from July 1 when the rules kick in.

But they're not after perfection either. You don't need to panic if you're not getting everything absolutely right on day one. But what you do need to do is prepare and get ready, and make sure you've got processes in place ready to go on that date.

George Sourris

Hey guys, just interrupting the show just for a quick second. We're trying to get some more reviews, so whatever platform you're listening on, if you can please give us a review, that'd help us find more people. Okay, back to the show.

That's literally my next talking point is How prepared is the industry?

And I mean, I don't want to delve too deep into it. I guess the point here is mainly an awareness piece, especially I'd say if maybe you're on the real estate side of things-

Lara Paholski

Mm-hmm ...

George Sourris

this should be your moment to go, "All right, I actually need to stop and think about this, because I'm on borrowed time.

I've only got a few weeks to get my ducks in a row so I don't get in trouble."

Lara Paholski

Yes. Yeah. We- so we've been, George, doing... It's a really good question. We've been doing a roadshow across states recently, helping to educate and guide our clients through, the rules, how to prepare, how to get ready and make sure you're compliant from July 1.

And my perception of how prepared is the industry, I think they are preparing, but some have had their heads under a rug. And I understand. It can be a little bit daunting.

George Sourris

Yeah, it

Lara Paholski

is.

George Sourris

It is

Lara Paholski

But- It is a bit daunting ... it, it's more to take on, and I think we can all appreciate that this will be more work for businesses, many of whom are, boutique agencies or sole operators.

It's a lot to take on with what they've already got on their plates. Yeah. But

George Sourris

we're all in the same boat ...

Lara Paholski

Everyone's in the same boat. Yeah. And there isn't a choice.

George Sourris

Yeah.

Lara Paholski

So really what I'm saying is whether you choose us or someone else, choose a partner who can help you, who has had to trawl through the AUSTRAC starter kits *ad nauseam*, who can help guide you and have put things in place to just make this leap into AML world as easy as it can be, with less burden on yourselves and some really good guidance with good partners.

George Sourris

Yeah, I think anyone would be a fool to consider not using a specialised company, like what you guys do, be it you guys or whoever people choose in the market, to manage this, because it is overwhelming.

Lara Paholski

It is ...

George Sourris

It would be overwhelming if you didn't have help from, say, a LiveSign,

to do that. Yes. Because for us, I know that as long as we do what guidelines you have told us to do, we can tick that off our list and basically we're in a good spot, as opposed to trying to read all this new legislation and build a process, without the help of a business that's been preparing for it for a long, long time.

Lara Paholski

Yes. Yeah.

George Sourris

Especially considering it's an extra $5 a person. I mean, to me it doesn't make any sense to even consider another option.

Lara Paholski

Yeah. I, I think that's really good advice George. If you think of the alternative, it is literally a real estate agent going onto the internet themselves trying to Google, has this, is this person, is there any adverse media on them, and trying to manage all this and the storage and everything else, that comes with trying to meet these obligations.

We've done the heavy lifting on trawling through the starter kits. We've literally... and for those who don't know what the starter kits are, they're what I describe as a set of guardrails that AUSTRAC have delivered to our industry to help make it just really easy for conveyancers, lawyers, real estate agents to be compliant.

Yeah. So it's guidance. If we think back to safe harbor

concept in VOI land, it's very similar. You've got flexibility, but it's a really great set of guardrails. So what we've done is we've digitized the guardrails, call it templates out of the starter kits. We've just digitized it and we're guiding our clients to say, "here's what you need to do.

After you've enrolled in our platform, here's what you need to do to get ready, and here's how it will work from July 1 when you're having to do customer due diligence."

George Sourris

Yes. Yes.

Lara Paholski

Yep.

George Sourris

So it's a no-brainer to me. It

Lara Paholski

is. I think so.

George Sourris

Just to wrap, wrap up this second point- Yep ... I've got one more question for you.

You've done a lot of boots on the ground work. We've been lucky enough that you've come and spoken to our team, and upskilled us, and given us a bit of an idea on what's coming. And I'm sure you've done that all over the place. Is there maybe one or two common questions that are, is coming up, like, all the time that you think would benefit for the audience to understand?

Because surely there's common themes that people are asking.

Lara Paholski

There is.

George Sourris

Yeah.

Lara Paholski

A lot of the questions we've been getting are actually around how do I operationalise this? If I've understood the starter kits or I'm starting to get my head around them and know what the new rules are, how do I practically do this in my agency or my conveyancing firm?

How's this going to work in a daily sense? And that's where we can guide them on using that platform, but I think it, it's the practical elements that people are most concerned about. And I'd also say, George, they're concerned about not having it perfectly right from day one.

Which I hope I've allayed any concerns around that.

It doesn't have to be perfect, but you need to be trying to be compliant.

George Sourris

Yes. Don't be the firm, don't be the real estate agency that just goes, "I'll deal with it later", because then you're actually going to get into some hot water. Yes. But if you're making best- You will ... endeavors and actually trying, okay.

Lara Paholski

Yep.

George Sourris

So I'm Joe Blow, I work for Ray White or LJ Hooker or whoever. Yep. And I'm listening to this and I'm going, "Oh man, I actually need to do something about this."

How do you get that rubber on the road? Like, is it a matter of-

Lara Paholski

How do you start?

George Sourris

Yeah.

Lara Paholski

Yep.

George Sourris

And like, say they listen and they Google you guys and they go, "Yeah, you guys look all right. We'll give you a crack."

Lara Paholski

Yep

George Sourris

Is there a process? Is there, like, an onboarding on your website, or how do they actually turn the theory into, "Yep, we want to talk to LiveSign about their offering"?

Lara Paholski

Yep, great. So they can go to our website, www.live-sign.com.

We'll have

George Sourris

everything in the show notes as well, guys, to make it easy.

Lara Paholski

Yeah. And we've got, you know, book a demo, speak to our team. We've got a whole range of options or ways in which they can touch base with our team, all who I might say are all in Australia onshore and ready there to help and service everyone.

George Sourris

Major value alignment there, Lar- Oh, yes ... because same with us, we are very proudly 100% onshore. You are. I think that's really important.

Lara Paholski

Yep.

George Sourris

Um, yeah. Anyway, sorry. Very important to us. Continue. I'm taking your

Lara Paholski

thunder. Uh, no, no. And if they'd like a literally a 5 to 10-minute demo, we'll do that for them.

The onboarding process is, literally takes minutes. We'll validate they're a legitimate, obviously business and client, and we'll then onboard them, and they're literally then up and running. So we've got a number of integrations with industry platforms. They might choose to use us through those integrations with our partners, or they can just simply use us going directly into our portal.

Easy onboarding process and, I don't know, George, you want me to touch on what they would then practically do to, in that platform to start to get ready?

George Sourris

Oh, yeah. Look, I mean, I think that's probably enough for now, I guess. Yep. Because yeah, this is just the call to action. If this is you, and you have buried your head in the sand, time to pull it out. Yep. And yeah, do your research, pick who you like, and get onboarded.

Lara Paholski

Yep. Yeah. Get started. And we can help guide them then on how to get started and what they'll need to do before July 1 to be ready to go on July 1.

George Sourris

Beautiful. Beautiful.

Lara Paholski

Yep.

George Sourris

All right. On to our last talking point. What AML means for clients sitting across the table. So a bit of a different lens now, talking about the client. So if we flip the perspective, we broadly understand now what the practitioners have to do. What does this mean for the everyday Queensland buyer or seller from the 1st of July?

Lara Paholski

What I think it means, George, is them having to provide a little bit more information to their real estate agent or a conveyancer than they previously may have had to do.

George Sourris

Yeah.

Lara Paholski

But it's not overwhelming, to be honest. So if they've been dealing with lenders and banks, which I'm sure most of your clients would've been, or most people's clients would've been, they're already having to provide the same information to the banks.

This now will mean they have to do it with yourselves. In terms of the onboarding questions that AUSTRAC have said need to occur for you to onboard your clients as a reporting entity, there's only about half a dozen. So as per AUSTRAC's starter kits, we've literally infused those into our existing digital identity workflow, and there's about six questions.

So we're asking your client things like what is your occupation? How much is the property worth? Is there a funder involved? If there's not, doesn't mean there is, but it can be a red flag. Are you involved in a charity, et cetera. So we're asking, it's only about half a dozen questions, some of which you actually know yourselves, from just engaging with your

client.

You would already potentially know what your clients do for a living, or their job, et cetera. If you don't know, that's okay. The client can answer those in the workflow. So from their perspective, there's a few extra questions in terms of the onboarding. In terms of the checks that need to be run- politically exposed checks, sanctions checks. Are they on, you know, terrorist watch lists? Is there any adverse media on this individual?

We're actually running those checks in milliseconds into global databases at exactly the same time that we are doing checks to check that that license or that passport was legitimately issued from the government or relevant government.

So in terms of those checks or background checks that are being done, the client won't even know they're being done, George. They'll be done in exactly the same time and way in which we already do the ID government checks, that are already being run today.

George Sourris

Yeah.

Lara Paholski

Yeah. So in terms of what they perceive to be different, it's not a lot.

The onboarding questions, there's some extra checks being done in the background. They won't even know about that. We're quietly doing those. The ID, the VOI component that's already in place today. That, there is no change on that front.

George Sourris

But most people should be pretty conditioned to that, right?

Yeah. Like, I think about the last place I bought, we used a, a big bank for our loan, and I remember I had to have, like, a selfie thing where they looked at my face and uploaded some ID and stuff. So it's probably that's these tranche one requirements for those lenders, right?

Yes, you're right. So, if you've done it before, it's not that big of an adjustment. No. And if you're new to it, I mean, you probably don't know any better, and that's just the process,

Lara Paholski

right? That's right. I think what will be really helpful for agents and yourselves to do is, you know, include some information around why you're asking some of those questions, and we've got guidance or precedents ready to go to help you put those into your letters.

It's about setting expectations from the beginning of the transaction and helping your clients understand that this isn't, you're not doing this for fun. It's actually a legal requirement, and it's not only to protect us, it's actually to protect them as well. And I think once you explain it like that, most people understand with the amount of money that's moving around in these transactions, it's pretty reasonable to expect that some more robust checks are going to be put in place.

George Sourris

Yes, yes. I, I just think about the client journey, and I'm just keen to get your thoughts on this.

If I'm a client and was thinking I'm going to, I'm going to get my loan, so I'm going to deal with a bank or a broker, then I'm going to be dealing with a real estate agent as a seller or a buyer. The agents have an obligation on the buying side as well, don't they? Yes. It's not just the sale side.

Then they get to the conveyancer or the solicitor. So classic, we're at the end of the journey. Yeah. I just, I don't know, I just have this gut feeling that there will be some people that will be like, "I've already done this twice, so why am I doing it a third time?" Yeah, yeah. And I guess to your point- It is what it is, and it's the law, right?

Lara Paholski

Like- Correct. There's no doubt there will be some friction, and you can somewhat understand from the consumer's perspective that they'll get a little bit frustrated, "Oh, God, not this again. I'm so sick of doing this. I've done this three times already." Yeah. But yes, we don't make the rules. And I, I think it is, at the minute, it's just explaining that we are part of the property transaction and we are going to have to do this.

Again, it's legislation now. We, it, there's not, not, it's not a choice, is it?

George Sourris

Yeah. Exactly right. Yep. I mean, there's one more bit I want to talk to you about, because you'd know significantly more about it than I do. I heard rumors that there's a possibility of, like, call it, AML ID sharing to an extent.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Like say, an agent, real estate agent goes, "Oh, George, do you guys have this? Can we use yours?"

Lara Paholski

Yeah.

George Sourris

Are you able to comment on that a little bit?

Lara Paholski

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So under AUSTRAC's rules, George, there is a reliance piece in there. It does require a written agreement for you to be able to share AML records or data.

Now, once that's in place, that's one thing, but then it, there's a number of considerations around the data security and sharing piece, and how you can and will actually securely transfer that data between reporting entities. Right. That's actually something we're working through at the moment.

Oh, cool. Security being a huge piece in that, given that it's involving transfer of data or access into seeing AML- and people's identity records, et cetera.

George Sourris

And the bad guys, that's a vantage point, I think. Absolutely ... it doesn't matter if it's a LiveSign or a competitor or whatever, or even if they're phishing, sitting in your emails.

That's probably a really good place where they're going to try and go to get sensitive information.

Lara Paholski

Absolutely.

George Sourris

Yeah.

Lara Paholski

And what I would say is it is going to be agents who would, I personally believe, typically rely more on the conveyancer and lawyer as opposed to the other way around. Because lawyers and conveyancers need to capture two plus IDs under ARNECC rules, whereas agents will not be, don't need to do that.

They ne- need to capture one. Yes. So you're not obviously going to rely on the agents, as such, unless you want to meet ARNECC and AUSTRAC requirements in two separate processes, which would just be really clunky.

George Sourris

Yeah. Well said. And the reason I bring it up is, I guess I know we've already had many, many inbound phone calls from, we've got heaps of agents that we work with every day that support our business heavily, and they're saying like, "George, what do we need to do?"

So that's where I think it's perfect timing that we're able to get this out to the world right before it comes live.

Lara Paholski

Yeah.

George Sourris

Because at the moment we're saying, "Well, look, we, we're still building our own process." Like we're obviously, we've got everything, all our ducks in a row. We're just waiting for go live to happen.

But ultimately it doesn't matter if you're the lawyer or if you're the agent or the accountant or whoever is obliged, ultimately it's your responsibility for that VOI and that AML check. It rests with you, right?

Lara Paholski

Correct.

George Sourris

It does. So if I get one, say the agent's like, "Oh, yeah, mate, I've got one," we're going to have issues because we need the two forms of ID, like you said.

But say it's the other way around, whoever is receiving it has to be comfortable that it's correct.

Lara Paholski

They do. Yeah. You're really relying then, and you're putting all your eggs in one basket of relying on someone else having done their due diligence to the level that you would do it to. Is that always going to be the case?

Well, depends who you're working with. But, I mean, in the scheme of things, I understand it's another cost, but it is fairly minimal, from our perspective, what we're charging on top of VOI, that I just think it's a no-brainer to do it yourselves and be rest assured, sleep well at night, that when you need to do your annual reporting with AUSTRAC and your three-yearly independent report, you can have confidence that you are going to be able to do that, will meet the reporting obligations really easily, and you've done the right thing.

George Sourris

Yeah. Like look, we made a decision.

Lara Paholski

It's a no-brainer in my view ...

George Sourris

And look, we've made a decision that we're not willing to accept anybody else's, just because, again, like for $5.00... we have to be 100% satisfied that we're doing everything right. Like, we're a law firm. Yes. We have a responsibility to the client as well.

This isn't a sausage factory. You know, this is serious.

Lara Paholski

It is. And- It's

George Sourris

really serious ...

Lara Paholski

yeah, reputational damage from not doing these things right. It might not bite you today, but come auditing time, or for a whole range of other reasons, it can come back to haunt you. So I just think make sure you're doing, I would recommend, your own due diligence.

Make sure you're meeting your obligations to the standards that you set for yourselves.

George Sourris

Yes. And look, to put it into perspective, guys, like vendors out there are spending an extra, call it $1,000 on seller's disclosures. You know, this is really a drop in the ocean. Like really, you won't even notice it.

So it's less than a cup of coffee and you have to do it. That's all it

Lara Paholski

is. Yeah.

George Sourris

So you actually have to do it. Yes. Like, it's, it's the law.

Lara Paholski

Yep.

George Sourris

Yeah.

Lara Paholski

Yeah, this is not an option anymore. It is coming and it's getting close. There's no need to be alarmed, just start to get prepared.

George Sourris

Yeah. Well said.

Well said. Yes. On that note, I've only got one more thing for you.

Lara Paholski

Oh.

George Sourris

It's called the golden nugget.

So the golden nugget is one piece of advice we've been asking all of our amazing guests, because only amazing people get to sit in the chair. So thank you. And, and look, the whole point is to, to raise the bar, right?

Like we said.

Lara Paholski

Yes.

George Sourris

And what you've built over your career and the tools that you have to offer practitioners like the people in our firm- it's amazing. It's really cool. Oh. Like, you think about fighting the good fight of trying to make Queensland property an amazing benchmark, and a great experience for everyday people. Because I, I've seen too many times where maybe people don't end up with good operators; and stress, deposits being at risk, things going wrong.

This awareness piece is for the population at large - so that they can help themselves make better choices, so that they're protected and their most expensive asset is looked after, right? And I think a tool like what you guys have built, and are continuing to evolve, is really, really cool.

Lara Paholski

Wow.

George Sourris

Thanks, George...thank you.

Lara Paholski

Well, we love what we do, so

George Sourris

yeah. Yeah, and it makes, that makes it easy, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and it makes it easy to work with people like you because you care.

Lara Paholski

Yes.

George Sourris

Yeah. It's not about squeezing extra money out of everybody or anything like that. It's like we've got this great system that we've built, and we believe in it, and it's going to make your life easier, and that's why we use it.

Lara Paholski

Yeah. Oh, that's fantastic to know, George. Yeah. And look, we hold our relationships with our clients so deeply. I think for people that know me, and anyone in our team, we really value our clients, and I genuinely say that something I'm really passionate about is building relationships, and I invest in them personally, as do our team.

You know, I can speak so highly, and I do, of our tech developers. They care what the experience is for you and your clients, and they love what they do. They're passionate. Our legal team myself, we love building relationships and investing in them. We might not be always the loudest out there in market, and we know that. We're focusing on the clients that we have, and that's what we love to do, and invest in the relationships.

George Sourris

Look, couldn't have said it better. I just add onto that is just that trust component. Like, for us, it's about the trust that we have in you and your team. The fact that we do choose you as the preferred provider to manage all of our risk assessment on verification of identity, anti-money laundering, they're going to have a good experience with that app as well. And I know that it's double green tick, nice and safe, and happy days.

Lara Paholski

Yeah. Oh, it's great. Thank you, George. I really appreciate that feedback. And what I would say to listeners, for anyone out there today, is whether you choose us or someone else, choose your partners wisely, because what a partner should be able to do for your business is help you stand taller, help you operate more efficiently, help your team and make your team's life easier and that of your clients', and they should be able to add value in so many ways to your business.

And it shouldn't just be about, oh, that ticks the box, that tech product. It should be about the people and how they add value and how they invest in the relationship with you. So to anyone listening out there today, I say choose your partners wisely. Make sure they're ones that help you stand tall, and you help support each other and each other's business and your visions and where you're heading to grow both of your businesses.

George Sourris

This is gold. On the back of that, that's just, that's perfect, Lara. The fact that I can have you on this podcast and I can proudly say to whoever's listening, we don't get paid by you guys. We don't, there's no kickback arrangement, there's no referral arrangement. Definitely not. There's not.

Which you

Lara Paholski

guys stand proud on as well.

George Sourris

We stand super proud on that. Yeah. Anyone that's been listening to, to us, you know, that's our passion point.

Lara Paholski

It is.

George Sourris

And I think that's really, really important. Like, we choose you because you're the best person for the job, and we believe that. And that's how it should be.

I think trust. Trust. Trust. It's transparent.

Lara Paholski

It, it is. It's tr- it's trust, it's transparency, and it's investing in the relationship and helping each other, being there at any time to support each other. Because there'll be good times, there'll be bad times. People need help, they can get overwhelmed.

It's just having each other's backs and investing, as I said, in the relationship, making sure it's genuine. And it does, it all comes back to trust, and I think that's what we've built over many, many years, George, and we love working with you guys. We genuinely do.

George Sourris

Sincerely, thank you. Yeah. Thanks, George.

Yeah. The, the "T" word I call it, I want that to become a common thing. When I think about business, and I think about the people that we choose to work with, or that choose to work with us more so, it comes back to a value alignment and trust.

Lara Paholski

It, it does. Yeah. The value alignment I think is a really good piece, and I'm glad you quickly mentioned that.

There's a lot of clients that we've worked with where we think, you know, you might not be aligned, or I'm sure you've had partners where you think you're not exactly aligned. And while you might continue working together ... I don't think you can achieve the same things together, than when you have an aligned vision and, you know, how you want to conduct yourselves doing business.

So I think that's what we've got going really strong.

George Sourris

Yeah. Yeah. And look-

Lara Paholski

We align well ...

George Sourris

Just to close it out then, I'm just going to double down on that. We're at a point in our business journey now where if we just get a whiff that whoever we're going to meet with- doesn't align with our core values, a key example for us being the kickback situation.

Mm-hmm. We get inbound inquiries all the time, like every week. I'd say almost, almost every day of like, "Oh, I've got all these clients I can send you. I just want $200 for every deal."

Lara Paholski

Wow.

George Sourris

I'm not joking. Like, it happens very regularly, and we just shut it down straight away and we just say, "Look, we proudly don't want to receive your money.

We don't pay for friends. We don't receive payment for friends or business, and we're just outright, it's, we're not a good fit for you. And look, it's up to you if you want to go and try the next solicitor. But we're not going to do it, and we're proud that we don't do it."

Lara Paholski

And you should be. You stand tall. It's a point of difference, George, in market for Empire Legal. And I genuinely say that, and you know what you stand for. And I'd say, again, to all the business owners out there, it's so important to know what you stand for. For anyone working in any business, there's always noise, isn't there?

There's noise from competitors. There's noise from regulatory changes. There's noise from people saying, "You can't do this," or, "You should be doing that." And I think it's really important to carve out the useful noise. Know what you stand for and know where you're heading.

Be really clear on that. And if it's unnecessary noise, carve it out. Move around it. If it's not helpful, don't waste your time. Don't go down rabbit holes. Keep moving on your mission. And if it's good noise, sure, lean into it. If it's not, move it to the side and move on. But

George Sourris

know what you stand for.

Yeah, and that's okay, isn't it? It is. It is. You, you find your people. You do. It's, it's very simple, and that saying has more and more meaning to me as I, as I get on in professional years of work- is you do find your people. There are ones where I'm like, "Oh, that's not going to be a good fit for our team," and that's okay.

No. That's actually-

Lara Paholski

It's actually okay ...

George Sourris

It's totally fine. Yeah. There's a market for that, it's just not going to be the circle that we want to play in.

Lara Paholski

That, that's right. Yeah. And it's actually okay. You know, not everyone will want to work with you, not everyone will want to work with me, and that is actually okay, because there's other options out there.

But find your people. Yeah. They'll make you better.

George Sourris

And look- last point to close it out, do a tiny bit of due diligence. Like, there's Google reviews, there's all sorts of different forums out there. There is. Be it if you're looking for an AML provider, a lawyer, whoever, doesn't matter. Whatever it is, I think people don't spend any time sometimes.

Like, if you've been referred to someone, it's actually okay to understand, are, are they getting paid for this introduction?

Lara Paholski

Yes.

George Sourris

Because to me, that's a bit of a red flag. It might be okay if that was disclosed upfront and you knew about it, but, you know, if you find out later that old mate's been getting paid under the table,

I mean, it just doesn't feel good.

Lara Paholski

It doesn't. Do, as you say, George, and rightly so, do your due diligence on your partners, on people you're working with. The internet, it's there, it's easy. Google. There's reviews. There's a whole range of ways in which you can do due diligence on people that you're going to partner with, and I highly recommend that.

George Sourris

It sounds silly to say out loud, but I've fallen victim to it myself. A good example, I've been referred someone who a friend has said, "Oh, you've gotta call these guys, they're the best." And I just go off that introduction, and then maybe the experience was subpar, and then after the fact I'll Google-

and I'm like, "Oh, man, wish I'd Googled first." Wish I'd looked first. "I could have read those reviews before."

Lara Paholski

That would've been helpful. Well, well, it's an easy thing to just jump into during the business but yeah, take a moment. It's only a moment. Do your due diligence on your partners, for sure.

George Sourris

And on that note, I wish good luck to everybody with the AML rollout.

Don't be scared. Hopefully whoever listened in understands a thing or two about it now, and we've got some really good resources -AKA Lara and her, her team. If you do need a bit of extra help. So I just encourage you guys to take some action and get it all happening so that you're all compliant.

Lara Paholski

Yeah. That's great. Great advice, George. And yeah, guys, anyone listening out there, there isn't any need to be alarmed. In many ways with AML coming, it's actually building upon what you are already doing. You're already looking into get gut feelings about clients. If something doesn't sit well.

You're already doing ongoing monitoring in that sense. You're already doing or checking the identity in many cases of the clients. And so a lot of what's coming for AML, it's an extension upon what you're already doing. It, it's not starting from ground zero, and we are here to help. So lean into, whether it's us or other people, resources and people that can help to guide you, because i- it doesn't need to be daunting.

Um, lean into it, get prepared, and you'll be okay.

George Sourris

Beautiful. We're done.

Lara Paholski

We're done.

George Sourris

Thank you for coming here, and thanks for your time, Lara. It's been a pleasure. I really appreciate it.

Lara Paholski

Thanks, George.

George Sourris

Thanks.

Lara Paholski

Thank you.

George Sourris

Ta-da.

Lara Paholski

Ta-da.