In simple terms, KYC is nothing but the bank asking for your identity proof. This prevents fraud and misuse of banking facility. Kind of a security check.
Lets take some examples on why this is necessary. Just imagine if anyone can enter any air-plane without any security check or luggage scanning. How would you feel about that?
This is the bank’s way of taking ownership of all funds placed for deposit under their care. Since KYC regulation went into force, you should know banks and financial institutions can perform identification completely remotely.
Similarly if you have a house and want to give it to some tenant, won’t you ask for his ID and address proofs? In the same manner KYC is the first and basic objective of a bank to establish a relationship with the customer.
Cash is strictly an anonymous medium of exchange, however, this changes when cash is deposited into a bank and then this electronic money is moved.
The whole idea behind Money Laundering is to move money in any which way so that you can turn that illegal money into legal or ‘white’ money.
RBI made it mandatory for all the Banks to comply with the KYC norms of the customers. Here you have to understand that if somebody is depositing more cash than their ability, the bank can easily pinpoint them.
KYC collects and verifies basic details of the customers like name and authorized signature. The reason why proper KYC norms can help is that if a particular customer or entity is in the black list being monitored, they can help spot and track transactions made. This means that proper identification of customers lead to better compliance and better monitoring.