National Australia Bank's BNZ will become the first of the Big Four banks to use the New Zealand government's RealMe service for identity verification, allowing users to open transaction accounts online. Launched in mid-2013, by the Department of Internal Affairs and New Zealand Post, RealMe allows customers to prove their identity once at a post office and then use that identity online to open accounts online without handing over signed and witnessed documents in a bank branch. BNZ has beaten Westpac, ANZ and Commonwealth Bank of Australia's ASB to the punch to be the first major bank to sign up to the service, which the government hopes will become the standard way of proving a person's online identity. Provisions for proving identity will get tougher after the passing of the Anti-Money-Laundering and Countering Financing of Terrorism Act (AML-CFT).New Zealand Post's KiwiBank and TSB Bank have already signed up to use RealMe. Westpac, which is the main bank for government departments, has previously indicated it was considering using RealMe but has yet to commit. The Government put its main banking contracts up for tender last year and has yet to decide on the winner.BNZ said anyone with a RealMe identity would be able to open a BNZ account from mid-February without having to visit a branch.New Zealand Post Group's head of agency services, Mandy Smith, said there were 5500 companies in New Zealand which were affected by the AML-CFT rules on identity verification.