India, despite being the country with the second largest population in the world and the largest number with a median age of around 25 years, lacks a proper social security net for its people. Financial planners and advisors say that, given the high growth and high inflation that we have to endure, there is every need for each of us to have a proper financial plan in place, including one to take care of financial needs during the retired life.
Keeping tab of one's financial position could become easier if we can have all the information about our investments at our fingertips. Proper documentation, that includes upto-date KYC (know your customer) information, nomination, storage of all the documents in electronic form, etc, are part of the process. Equally important is having a plan about how your properties are to be distributed when you are no longer there, including putting in place your will.
Importance of KYC
Know Your Customer, or KYC in short, refers to a process of due diligence that regulators in the financial market prescribe for investors and/or customers of the institutions under their regulatory purview.
Over the years, the KYC process in India has gained importance for preventing financial frauds and other wrongdoings, money laundering, terrorist funding, etc. In India, a KYC process is a must for almost all financial transactions.
Various regulators in the financial sector have various KYC compliance norms, which in practice create substantial inconvenience for investors, customers, insurance policy buyers and other stakeholders. Thankfully, realizing the fact that such inconveniences also have the potential to put off investors in the market, finance minister P Chidambaram — while addressing a gathering in Mumbai earlier this month — said that all the financial sector regulators should come together and have in place a universal KYC norm. The idea is to have interoperability among RBI, Sebi, IRDA, PFRDA and other agencies in the financial sector in terms of KYC.
Soon after U K Sinha took over the chairmanship of Sebi, it moved ahead to have a uniform KYC system for all its regulated entities. This was done after it was brought to the notice of the Sebi chief that even though the brokers, stock exchanges, mutual funds and some other entities were under the same regulator, each had a separate KYC procedure. It's been about a year that KYC norms for all entities regulated by Sebi have uniform norms. Towards this end, the different KYC registration agencies (KRAs) are required to be linked to each other so that the KYC data for any one customer with any of the KRAs should be available with the others.
The KYC form for an individual having a financial relationship with a Sebi regulated entity requires the following information: Name, address and occupation, gender, date of birth, nationality, income tax PAN, gross annual income and a passport photo.
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