IRDAI Chairman T S Vijayan believes that central KYC (CKYC) will be a game changer for the financial services industry. He was speaking at an industry event held recently in Mumbai.
Vijayan said that implementation of CKYC will not only help insurance penetration but it will also benefit the entire financial services industry in a big way. He said that those who buy insurance and invest in mutual funds have a bank account. Since bank KYC would suffice to invest in all financial products, this will eventually help reduce turnaround time to onboard a new client, he added.
Announced in the Union Budget 2012-13, the government’s ambitious CKYC went live in July.
All financial regulators – RBI, SEBI, IRDAI and PFRDA have already instructed their respective regulated entities to upload KYC data of their customers on the Central KYC Registry platform. This essentially means that all investor data will be stored at one place which can be accessed by all financial institutions to verify the KYC.
All investors need to do is obtain a central KYC number from Central KYC Registry through the financial institutions and use it to invest in any financial product. There will be no need to do multiple KYC.
The Central Registry of Securitisation Asset Reconstruction and Security Interest of India (CERSAI) was entrusted with the task of setting up the Central KYC Registry. CERSAI has appointed DotEx International Limited, a NSE group company, as its managed service provider for the Central KYC Registry.
