Know your customer (KYC) is the set of identity checks that a bank, broker, lender or wallet runs before it takes on a new customer. In India, most people now go through these checks on a phone, in a few minutes, without visiting a branch. The rules, and how KYC works in general, are explained on the KYC (know your customer) page. This page follows the checks in the order in which they happen, and the quieter checks that continue after the account is open.
The bank does not usually build this software itself. It calls specialist products, one for each check. Each product returns an answer within seconds, and the bank's app moves to the next step.
Take, for example, opening a savings account on a bank's app in Guwahati. Before you even type your name, the app has started checking the phone. Device fingerprinting builds an identity for the phone from its settings and hardware. It checks whether this same phone has recently opened other accounts, perhaps under other names.
Next, you photograph your PAN card and take a selfie. Identity verification (IDV) checks that the card is genuine, that its details match the government's records, and that the selfie matches the photo on the card. A liveness check confirms that a live person, not a photo or a video, is in front of the camera. If the software is unsure, the bank moves you to video KYC, a live call with a bank employee. Some apps, such as games and dating apps, need to know only that the user is an adult. They use age estimation instead, which estimates age from a face without identifying the person.
Then the details themselves are scored. Synthetic identity fraud detection checks whether the name, the PAN, the phone number and the address belong to one real person, or have been stitched together from several people's details.
Then your name is screened. Sanctions and PEP screening checks it against lists of people that banks must not serve, and against lists of politically exposed persons, such as senior officials. When the new customer is a company, such as a shop opening a current account, the bank also runs know your business (KYB). KYB checks that the company is real, and finds out who owns it.
The account opens. But the checks do not stop there. Months later, someone logs in with your correct password. Behavioural biometrics compares how this person types, swipes and holds the phone with how you usually do. If the behaviour does not match, the app asks for an extra check, or blocks a large transfer.
So the document and the face are checked once, when the account is opened. The device and the behaviour are checked quietly at every login. Both kinds of check have become harder, because AI can now produce fake faces, voices and documents, as AI in cybersecurity explains.