Amendment to Master Direction on KYC

The Reserve Bank of India (‘RBI’) has by way of its notification dated May 29, 2019 made certain changes to the Master Direction on KYC dated February 25, 2016 (‘KYC Master Direction’), pursuant to which all regulated entities will be allowed to carry out Aadhaar authentication / offline verification of an individual who voluntarily provides his Aadhaar number for identification purpose. Further, additional certifying authorities for verification of documents of non-resident Indians and persons of Indian origin have been specified under the KYC Master Direction. Under the KYC Master Direction the term ‘regulated entities’ includes all banks (i.e. scheduled commercial banks, regional rural banks, local area banks, etc. which have been licensed under Section 22 of Banking Regulation Act, 1949), all Indian financial institutions, all non-banking finance companies, all payment system providers, etc.