New verification process .bank and .insurance

fTLD Registry, which manages the highly regulated .bank and .insurance top level domains, will change its registrant verification process soon. This change will take effect on 18 April 2018.

In the current situation, Symantec starts the verification process is as soon as a customer orders a domain. The process restarts with every renewal order (or at least every two years) thereafter.

From the 18th of April, the registry will start handling the verification process itself, before the registrant has ordered the domain. To start the verification process, the registrant will first have to visit the registry’s website (either for the .bank or .insurance domains).

Based on the information that the applicant provides (of which you can find an example here), the registry will verify their eligibility. If the verification succeeds, the registrant will receive a token. This token (a sort of password) allows you to order the domain name at Openprovider.

Be careful when ordering the domain! The holder data that you submit to Openprovider must match the data that the registrant submitted to the registry. You can submit applications to the registry as per 11 April 2018, through the above URLs.

Annually, the registry will ask the domain holder by e-mail to confirm the correctness of the data on file. Any changes can be submitted through Openprovider. When the registrant confirms correctness or updates the domain data, the registry will start reverification. The annual reverification process will start no earlier than the 1st of May 2018.

Please note that the registry will inform all domain holders about this new verification process on the 6th of April.