Medallion Signature Guarantee for Australian Assets After a Death

What a Medallion Signature Guarantee Actually Does

A medallion signature guarantee is a specialized verification stamp that US financial institutions require before they will transfer, sell, or re-register securities — stocks, bonds, mutual funds — held in a deceased person's name. It goes beyond standard notarization. The institution issuing the stamp assumes financial liability for the authenticity of the signature, which is why banks and brokerages treat it as non-negotiable.

When an American dies in Australia and held shares on US platforms like Schwab, Fidelity, or Vanguard, or needs to transfer Australian shares through a US system, the executor may eventually hit this requirement. The problem: medallion signature guarantees are almost exclusively available through US financial institutions participating in one of three programs (STAMP, SEMP, or MSP), and Australian banks do not participate in any of them.

Why Australian Banks Cannot Issue One

Australian banks — Commonwealth Bank, ANZ, Westpac, NAB — do not belong to the medallion signature guarantee programs administered by the Securities Transfer Association. These programs operate exclusively within the US and Canadian financial systems. An Australian notary public stamp or a Justice of the Peace certification, while valid for many Australian legal purposes, will be rejected by every US broker and transfer agent that requires a medallion guarantee.

This creates a specific bottleneck for executors managing a cross-border estate from Australia, or US-based executors who need to transfer Australian-registered securities through Computershare's US operations.

How Executors Get Around This

If the executor is in the United States, the simplest path is walking into a bank or credit union where they hold an account and requesting the guarantee in person. Most major US banks — Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo — provide the service to existing customers. Some charge a fee (typically $25 to $75), and some require the transfer amount to fall within their guarantee limits. Call ahead, because not every branch has an authorized signatory available every day.

If the executor is in Australia, the options narrow considerably:

• US consulate notarial services in Sydney, Melbourne, or Perth can notarize documents, but they do not issue medallion guarantees. However, some US brokerages will accept a consular-notarized signature combined with a certified copy of the Letters Testamentary or Grant of Probate — call the brokerage's estate settlement team to confirm before flying to the consulate.
• Power of attorney to a US-based representative who can physically visit a US bank branch and sign on behalf of the executor. The POA must be specific to the securities transfer and, depending on the brokerage, may need to be apostilled by DFAT.
• Transfer agents like Computershare have their own deceased estate departments in both countries. For Australian-registered shares, Computershare Australia handles the transfer directly using the Australian Grant of Probate and a BDM death certificate — no medallion guarantee needed. The guarantee requirement surfaces only when transferring through the US system.

The Superannuation and Managed Fund Exception

Australian superannuation death benefits and managed funds (unit trusts) do not go through the same securities transfer pipeline as US-registered shares. Super funds pay death benefits directly to nominated beneficiaries or the estate trustee after receiving a certified death certificate and proof of identity. No medallion guarantee is involved. The same applies to Australian managed funds administered by platforms like BT, AMP, or Colonial First State — they follow Australian financial regulations, not US securities law.

When the Guide Helps

The American Dies in Australia guide includes a securities transfer tracker that maps which assets require a medallion guarantee, which can be handled directly through Australian estate procedures, and the exact documents each institution needs. It eliminates the back-and-forth calls with brokerages that eat weeks of an executor's time during a period when the 14-to-18-hour time zone gap between the US and Australia already makes every phone call a middle-of-the-night operation.