September 6: Do you have multiple bank accounts and are required to fill a customer identification from (KYC) every year? Or because of the lack of KYC update, the account is inactive and you have to suffer? Account holders of banks and financial institutions are current facing such problems.

As the Nepal Rastra Bank is preparing to develop a central customer identification system, there is no need to update KYC for each and every bank.

The proposed central customer identification system can be used by all financial institutions and the customer details will be updated from the system.

In the monetary policy of the current fiscal year, the central bank announced the establishment of a central customer identification system in order to facilitate the exchange of customer information between banks, financial institutions and other organizations licensed to perform payment-related activities, and to link national identity cards issued by the government to the central customer identification system. As per the announcement, preparations for setting up the central customer identification system have been initiated, said Dilliram Pokharel, joint spokesperson of NRB.

He said that the regulation department of the central bank is currently studying the prospects of the central customer identification system and will coordinate with other agencies later for its implementation.

Pokharel said that the customers will get a unique identification number after joining the system. Banks can update the customer's information from that number.

After this system is implemented, the customer only needs to update the information in one place. All the financial institutions will update the KYC from the system, so there will be less hassle for the customers. The central customer identification system (C-KYC) has been used in the securities market since last July. After updating the details in the C-KYC system operated by CDS and Clearing Limited (CDSC), the customer does not need to update the KYC separately at the securities dealers and merchant banks. There is a provision to update KYC by the affiliated company from the number received from CDSC.

According to the provisions of the law related to the prevention of money laundering, financial institutions must keep their customers’ details up to date.