The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Thursday launched Aadhaar-based Video Customer Identification Process (V-CIP) to allow banks and other lenders to remotely complete KYC of customers on videos. The central bank has allowed video-based KYC (Know Your Customer) as an option to establish a customer's identity.
The V-CIP, which will be consent-based, will make it easier for banks and other regulated entities to adhere to the RBI's KYC norms by leveraging the digital technology.
"...with a view to leveraging the digital channels for Customer Identification Process (CIP) by Regulated Entities (REs), the Reserve Bank has decided to permit V-CIP as a consent based alternate method of establishing the customer's identity, for customer onboarding," the RBI said in a notification.
The RBI has taken this initiative after the government amendment to the Prevention of Money-laundering (Maintenance of Records) Rules, 2005, last year.
The move is likely to provide relief to fintech start-ups and digital non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) as they would no more required to physically reach out to customers in remote locations. This new feature is likely to minimise their cost in a big way. Now, these start-ups can use this facility as an alternative to the already available e-KYC facility.
The V-CIP can be used to "capture live photo of the customer and officially valid document or the proof of possession of Aadhaar, where offline verification cannot be carried out, along with the latitude and longitude of the location where such live photo is being taken by an authorised officer of the Reporting Entity (RE) as per the provisions contained in the Act".
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The central bank also said that the regulated entities will have to ensure that the video recording is stored in a safe and secure manner and bears the date and time stamp.
"REs are encouraged to take assistance of the latest available technology", including artificial intelligence (AI) and face matching technologies, to ensure the integrity of the process as well as the information furnished by the customer, it said.
"However, the responsibility of customer identification shall rest with the RE," the circular on master directions said.
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As per the RBI directives, the reporting entity should capture a clear image of PAN card to be displayed by the customer during the process, except in cases where e-PAN is provided by the customer. Adding to it, the photograph of the customer in the Aadhaar/PAN details should be verified from the database of the issuing authority.
The notification also mentioned that the reporting entity should ensure that photograph of the customer in the Aadhaar/PAN details matches with the customer undertaking the V-CIP and the identification details in Aadhaar/PAN should match with the details provided by the customer.
"Live location of the customer (Geotagging) shall be captured to ensure that customer is physically present in India," it said.
By Chitranjan Kumar