Preparing your business customers
A playbook for getting business customers through the nominated representative step with minimal drop-off.
Most business-account drop-off happens for one reason: the customer reaches the consent flow before their institution has a nominated representative on file, sees no accounts, and gives up. The fix is preparation — do the work before the flow, not after it fails.
1. Identify business customers before the flow
Ask early in your onboarding whether the accounts to be shared are held by a company, trust, or partnership. If they are, treat the nominated representative step as a prerequisite, not an edge case.
2. Establish the account holder type
The exact requirement depends on the entity and the institution. A sole trader sharing accounts in their own name can usually proceed straight to consent. A company or trust almost always needs the appointment first. If you're unsure, assume the appointment is needed — it's cheaper than a failed flow.
3. Send the right per-institution guide
Generic instructions cause confusion because every institution's process is different. Send your customer the guide for their specific bank or retailer — for example ANZ, Commonwealth Bank, or AGL — and tell them roughly how long it takes so they can plan around it.
4. Consider a letter of authority for high-touch onboarding
If phone queues and forms are too much friction for your customers, there's a heavier-handed option: the business appoints a member of your team as its nominated representative, using a letter of authority.
How it works:
- The business signs a letter of authority appointing a named person on your team as its CDR nominated representative at the relevant institution.
- Your team member contacts the institution, presents the authority, and gets themselves appointed.
- Once appointed, your team member goes through the consent flow on the business's behalf and approves data sharing.
Two conditions must hold
The business must knowingly agree to the appointment, and the institution must accept it — acceptance of third-party representatives varies by institution, so confirm before building a workflow around it. Where both conditions are met, this is a compliant way to take the appointment burden off your customers.
5. Set expectations on timing
Online appointments can be immediate; form- and phone-based ones can take several business days. Tell customers up front, and don't schedule anything that depends on the data until the appointment is confirmed.