Central Know Your Customer or c KYC is a centralized depository of KYC records of customers engaged in various financial market segments. The uniqueness of c KYC is that once a person/investor completes his KYC process with a financial entity like a bank, Mutual Fund, or insurance company, he need not enter a KYC norm again.
The c KYC has uniform KYC norms and various institutions across financial markets like banks, mutual funds, NBFCs etc, can access information stored in the central registry (c KYC) about customers. The inter-usability or the use of common data by different financial institutions reduce the burden of producing and verifying KYC documents every time when the customer approaches a new financial entity. Once a person finish KYC process with Central KYC, he can invest in all financial products.
The c KYC programme was launched in July 2016, though its full-fledged operation is expected to be initiated by mid-2017. The programme is managed by Central Registry of Securitization and Asset Reconstruction and Security Interest in India (CERSAI). The CERSAI is a government company licensed under section 25 of the Companies Act.
Following are the main functions of c KYC managed by CERSAI:
- The programme is responsible for electronically (i) storing (ii) safeguarding and (iii) retrieving the Know Your Customer (KYC) records and making such records available online to reporting entities or Director.
- Information updated about a customer shall be disseminated on request by Central KYC Registry to any reporting entity that avail the services of the Central KYC Registry in respect of the customer.
- The services of the Central KYC Registry will be available on payment of prescribed fee, in advance.
- Shall process the KYC records received from a reporting entity for deduplication and issue a unique KYC Identifier for each client to the reporting entity
- Ensure that the integrity of the electronic systems for records is maintained and accessible at all material times.
- Take all precautions necessary to ensure that the electronic Know Your Customer (KYC) records are not lost, destroyed or tampered with and that sufficient back up of electronic records is available at all times at a different place.
- Take all reasonable measures to prevent unauthorized access to its KYC database.
Central KYC information can be accessed by authorised institutions/notified institutions under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act or rules framed by the Government of India or any Regulator (RBI, SEBI, IRDA, and PFRDA) there under.
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