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Know Your Client (KYC) is the identity-verification and due-diligence work a mortgage brokerage, lender, or administrator must complete on every client, using FINTRAC-recognized methods such as government-issued photo identification, the credit file method, or the dual-process method.
KYC is the foundation of Canada's anti-money-laundering framework, which FINTRAC enforces against mortgage brokerages, lenders, and administrators as regulated "reporting entities." FINTRAC guidance recognizes specific ways to confirm a person is who they say they are, including the government-issued photo identification method, the credit file method, and the dual-process method (two independent, reliable sources confirming name and address).
KYC isn't just a form filled out once at intake. FINTRAC guidance treats large cash transactions — $10,000 or more in a single transaction — as a trigger for additional identification and record-keeping, and expects client information to be revisited as the relationship continues, not frozen at the first meeting. The same information gathered for KYC typically feeds directly into a broker's suitability assessment.
Legal basis: mortgage brokerages, lenders, and administrators are reporting entities under Canada's anti-money-laundering law and must identify clients using a FINTRAC-recognized method.
Recognized methods: government-issued photo identification, the credit file method, and the dual-process method are among the ways FINTRAC guidance accepts for verifying an individual's identity.
Large cash trigger: FINTRAC guidance identifies $10,000 or more in cash in a single transaction as the threshold for a large cash transaction record.
Who applies it: mortgage agents (Ontario, FSRA), submortgage brokers (BC, BCFSA), mortgage associates (Alberta, RECA), and courtiers hypothécaires (Quebec, AMF) all build KYC steps into client intake.
Definitions reflect Canadian federal and provincial rules as of the “Updated” date above. Not advice for any specific file.
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