Why we ask for ID before your first payout

Any business that receives and pays out money for other people — payment processors, marketplaces, crowdfunding platforms, banks — is legally required to verify who they're paying. This is called Know Your Customer (KYC), and it exists to prevent money laundering, fraud, and payments to sanctioned individuals.

Tinystart doesn't hold or move your money directly — Stripe does, as our payments partner. Stripe is a licensed financial services provider, which means Stripe (not Tinystart) is the one legally required to verify your identity before it can pay funds into your bank account.

Depending on your circumstances, Stripe may ask for some or all of:

• your full legal name and date of birth;
• your residential address;
• a government-issued ID (driver's licence, passport);
• your bank account details for payouts; and
• in some cases, your tax file number or ABN, if you're operating as a business.

This is the same information any bank or payment provider would ask for when opening an account that can receive and send money — it's not specific to baby funds or gift registries.

This is the part most people actually want to know: we don't see it. Your ID documents, date of birth, and bank details go directly to Stripe through Stripe's own secure onboarding flow, embedded on this page but running entirely on Stripe's servers.

Tinystart only ever receives back a status — whether your account is verified and able to receive payouts — never the underlying documents or details themselves.

Stripe processes payments for millions of businesses worldwide, including many of the largest companies operating online, and is held to strict data security and financial regulatory standards (including PCI DSS compliance for payment data). Your information is handled under Stripe's own privacy and security practices, which you can review directly on Stripe's privacy page.