CERSAI

Every time you open a new account with a bank, broker or mutual fund, you normally fill in KYC papers again. KYC stands for Know Your Customer. A central registry was built to end this repeat work.

CERSAI runs that registry. The Government of India put CERSAI in charge in 2015. The registry itself is called the Central KYC Records Registry, or CKYCR. It stores your KYC details online. Other regulated firms can then reuse those details, instead of asking you to submit them again.

Under the 2015 amendment to the Prevention of Money Laundering (Maintenance of Records) Rules, 2005, every reporting entity must capture an individual client's KYC information in the format CERSAI has finalised, and upload it to the CKYCR for every account opened on or after 1 August 2016. Once uploaded, CERSAI issues a unique KYC Identifier for the client, after checking for duplicates.

The registry serves reporting entities across all four major financial regulators — RBI, SEBI, IRDAI and PFRDA. When a customer gives their KYC Identifier to a new reporting entity, that entity can download the existing KYC records from the registry instead of asking the customer to submit documents again, except where the customer's information has changed, or their current address needs to be re-verified.

Ankit opens a demat account with a new broker in Bengaluru in 2024. Instead of submitting his PAN card, address proof and photograph all over again, he gives the broker his KYC Identifier, issued when he first completed KYC with a mutual fund in 2019.

The broker uses this identifier to download Ankit's existing KYC records from CERSAI's Central KYC Records Registry, avoiding duplicate paperwork. If Ankit had since moved house, the broker would still need fresh address verification for the new address, even though the rest of his KYC record is reused unchanged.

Chapter 17 (Operational Aspects of Investment Management), section 17.2.3, 'Centralised KYC Registration Agencies (KRA)', names CERSAI as the government-authorised operator of the Central KYC Records Registry and explains the download-instead-of-resubmit rule. Expect a question on what CERSAI does, the 1 August 2016 cut-off, or the four regulators the registry serves.

• CERSAI is not a KYC Registration Agency (KRA) itself — the workbook distinguishes CERSAI, which operates the central registry, from the separate KRAs each market intermediary may use.
• A KYC Identifier lets a new reporting entity reuse existing records, but this is not unconditional — a changed customer detail, or an address needing re-verification, still requires fresh documentation.
• The registry serves all four major financial-sector regulators, RBI, SEBI, IRDAI and PFRDA, not SEBI alone.