Financial sector regulators to work on universal KYC

New Delhi: Financial sector regulators, including the Reserve Bank of India, will look at a universal know your customer (KYC) framework and develop systems with the Central Know Your Customer Registry (CKYCR) to promote the inter-usability of records and avoid multiple verifications.

Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in a meeting of the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) in Mumbai on Tuesday urged the financial sector regulators to take proactive steps to ensure that citizens have a seamless experience with the KYC processes across the financial sector.

In a statement, the finance ministry said the FSDC also considered strengthening the cyber resilience framework of the Indian financial sector through a financial sector-specific cybersecurity strategy.


The FSDC also discussed issues relating to formulating a strategy for implementing the past decisions and the budget announcements, which included prescribing common KYC norms, simplification and digitalisation of the KYC process, including digital onboarding for non-resident Indians (NRIs), PIOs and OCIs in the Indian securities market.

The FSDC has representation from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai), the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) and officials from the finance and corporate affairs ministries.

Sitharaman urged the regulators and departments to expedite the process of refund to rightful owners of unclaimed amounts by holding special district-level camps.

She also emphasised that interest of common citizens be kept in mind and therefore expeditiously refund the claims of the rightful claimants, the statement said.

The unclaimed amounts comprise deposits in banks, unclaimed shares and dividends managed by IEPFA and unclaimed insurance and pension funds with Irdai and PFRDA, respectively.

This drive is to be conducted in coordination with RBI, Sebi, MCA, PFRDA and Irdai along with banks, pension agencies and insurance companies.

The finance ministry statement noted that the FSDC also deliberated on the emerging trends from the domestic and global macro-financial situation and stressed the need to be vigilant.

"The council recognised the need for proactive efforts to mitigate potential risks to financial stability while adopting adequate safeguards for the financial system's resilience," it said.