KYC
The legally required process of verifying the identity of an individual customer before opening an account.
Know Your Customer (KYC) is the identity-verification process U.S. financial institutions must perform under the Bank Secrecy Act, the USA PATRIOT Act Section 326, and FinCEN's Customer Identification Program (CIP) rule. KYC verifies who the human is — typically through government-issued ID and selfie liveness. KYC is distinct from KYB, which verifies the legal entity. For a non-resident opening a U.S. bank account, both KYC and KYB run in parallel and either failure halts the account.
Also known asKnow Your Customer, Customer Identification Program, CIP
Related terms
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- Persona — An identity-verification platform that runs document, biometric, database, and watchlist checks for KYC and KY…
- CDD — The FinCEN rule requiring financial institutions to identify and verify the identity of beneficial owners of l…
- Patriot Act Section 326 — The 2001 USA PATRIOT Act provision requiring financial institutions to implement a Customer Identification Pro…