Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Banks Transitional move towards Unique Customer Identification Code( UCIC)

The increasing complexity and volume of financial transactions leads to customers having multiple identities within a bank, across the banking system and across the financial system.

Reserve Bank of India has enforced strict guidelines (Know Your Customer (KYC)/Anti-Money Laundering (AML)/Combating of Financing of Terrorism (CFT) Guidelines) to maintain and consolidate single login credential  for transaction operations.

The objective is to provide simple mechanism to track customer information across various channels. Using Unique Customer Identification Code( UCIC), customer can view and track all accounts/relationships with the bank. This will facilitate bank to perform audits and also enhance user ease. 

In this regard, a Working Group constituted by the Government of India has proposed the introduction of unique identifiers for customers across different banks and Financial Institutions for setting up a centralized KYC Registry. While setting up such a system for the entire financial system is likely to take quite some time, banks can make an immediate beginning in this regard by having such identification code for their own customers. HDFC bank has started the transitional move towards having consolidated identify across their customer.

Mapping and maintaining Unique Customer Identification Code will drive solutions like Identity & Access management. Similar, solution will facilitate bank to easily transform the business alignment with regards to upcoming guidelines from RBI.