One Click Group’s Nathan Kerr and Zed Law’s Ryan Zahrai explore how identity, compliance, and client experience are being reimagined in real time.
Redraft: The New Rules of Work & Innovation for a New Era is a five-part interview series facilitated by The Big Smoke.
Our host is Ryan Zahrai, Principal Lawyer at Zed Law, a legal practice combining commercial expertise with the power of smart technology.
Throughout our series, Ryan speaks with innovative voices in law, tech, and business to unpack how the legal industry is evolving: from AI and automation to compliance, client experience, and the very structure of legal practice itself.
In our first instalment of Redraft, Ryan chats to One Click Group’s Nathan Kerr to explore how identity, compliance, and client experience are being reimagined in real time.
Nathan shares how the evolution of One Click Group is reshaping compliance-heavy industries, and what it means for the future of law, healthcare, and beyond.
From tax returns to trusted identity infrastructure
Nathan’s journey didn’t start in Silicon Valley. It started with a bet scribbled on a beer coaster, buying his first accounting practice, and scaling it into One Click Group, which is now Australia’s fifth-largest tax provider by volume.
But it was identity, not tax, that revealed the real gap.
Nathan confirms, “We’d built a successful tax business, but the real pain point was identity.”
That insight led to One Click Verify, a privacy-first platform that empowers firms to build custom ID flows, suited to their actual risk profiles, not a regulator’s fantasy. Built API-first, it lets law firms and healthcare operators design their own compliance, rather than be dictated to by legacy software.
As Ryan puts it, “Law firms are part of bigger ecosystems now. We need tools that don’t slow us down, and that don’t dictate how we work.”
Privacy by design is a trust signal
Too many firms (and businesses) are still collecting and storing documents they don’t need, creating compliance risks that didn’t exist before the tech arrived.
“A driver’s licence has way more info than most businesses need. We’re storing documents for no good reason, and increasing our liability in the process,” Nathan says.
Ryan agrees, “Clients want to feel safe, not surveilled. That’s especially true in spaces like Telehealth or medicinal cannabis, where identity checks need to be discreet, not invasive.”
One Click’s system solves that by enabling short-term storage, metadata-only logs, and permission-based access, which means you can prove you verified someone without holding their private documents indefinitely. In the world sensitive to data misuse, the model turns privacy into a competitive edge.
Making regulation usable and compliant
With Australia’s AML/CTF rules expanding, thousands of firms are about to be swept into regulatory obligations they don’t fully understand.
But as Nathan sees it, the challenge isn’t compliance, it’s interpretation. “Most of the market still thinks compliance means collecting and keeping everything. But the legislation’s not built that way.”
Ryan points out, “For a lot of practitioners, the fear isn’t the law, it’s the admin.”
That’s why One Click does more than build software. They work with AUSTRAC, ASIC, and other regulators to shape guidance that actually works on the ground.
Tech needs to do more than automate steps. It needs to make compliance feel doable for the people actually doing the work.
Fixing the friction that slows business down
The One Click team knows the pain points that slow deals down: bad mobile UX, multi-step uploads, verification delays. They just frustrate users, and they cost firms time and revenue.
Nathan puts it bluntly, “If it takes your client 20 minutes to upload ID, and it doesn’t work on mobile, that’s a lost transaction.”
Verification delays create legal bottlenecks. They kill momentum in deals. And they set the wrong tone with clients who expect seamless service from the first touchpoint.
Ryan confirms at Zed Law that verification isn’t just backend hygiene, “Verification is part of client experience now. If you get that wrong, you’re already behind, even if your advice is gold. That’s why we care how it’s built, and who builds it.”
Built in Australia for Australia’s rules
While global players may dominate the identity space, One Click’s edge is local and built for Australian laws, and aligned with Australian regulators and integrated with local infrastructure like Document Verification Services (DVS) ConnectID, and Infosec Registered Assessors Program (IRAP).
“We’re not trying to be everything to everyone. We’re building tools that actually work in Australia, with our regulators, our clients, and our systems,” Nathan adds.
That localisation gives them an agility most overseas vendors can’t match. And for legal teams, founders, and investors who want both speed and control. It matters.
In the real world, as Ryan notes, “You can’t just throw tech at a problem. You have to know what makes the work meaningful, and what makes it efficient.”
Rebuilding trust through better design
The systems you use say something about how you operate, how seriously you take your clients’ privacy, and how much respect you embed into the service. Above accessibility it’s about trust.
When done well, verification becomes invisible. Frictionless. Reassuring. It builds trust before you’ve even delivered advice.
For legal, health, and finance professionals, that’s not a side benefit. It’s the foundation.
Inspired by these conversations?
Zed Law partners with ambitious businesses to simplify complexity, reduce friction, and deliver innovative legal solutions.
Built for leaders in tech, healthcare, and finance, they turn compliance into strategic advantage. So you can stay compliant, scale confidently, and lead with clarity.
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Full article: Identity without the bloat: Nathan Kerr on smarter compliance and privacy-first tech – The Big Smoke