A post is being widely shared on social media with a claim that the Central Bank of India has included NPR (National Population Register) document in the KYC list and the people would be able to withdraw money from the accounts only if the NPR document is submitted. Let’s try to analyze the claim made in the post.
Claim: NPR document needs to be submitted to withdraw money from the bank accounts.
Fact: Central Bank of India has issued a clarification that any one document from the mentioned list (in the advertisement) can be submitted for the KYC verification. NPR document is not mandatory. Hence the claim that the NPR document is mandatory for the KYC verification in banks is MISLEADING.
Central Bank of India advertisement, mentioned in the post, can be found in the Eenadu newspaper published on 11th January 2019, published in Telangana. In the advertisement, it can be seen that the ‘letter issued by the NPR authorities’ has been included in the list of documents valid for the KYC verification. But, in the advertisement, it is not mentioned that all the documents in the list need to be submitted for the KYC verification.
RBI (Reserve Bank of India) is the regulating-institution of banks in India. On its official website, it can be seen that it ‘prescribes broad parameters of banking operations within which the country’s banking and financial system functions’. So, it is unlikely for the individual banks to come up with their own new rules.
On the official website of RBI, in the ‘Master Direction – Know Your Customer (KYC) Direction, 2016’, it can be seen that ‘letter issued by the National Population Register containing details of name and address’ is included in the ‘Officially Valid Document’ (OVD) list. The ‘Master Direction – Know Your Customer (KYC) Direction, 2016’ is regularly updated and recently, it has been updated on 9th January 2020. Even in the updated direction, there is no mention of mandatory submission of the NPR document for the KYC verification.
On the Government’s website, Vikaspedia, more information regarding the KYC can be read. KYC is defined as the ‘process by which banks obtain information about the identity and address of the customers. This process helps to ensure that banks’ services are not misused. The KYC procedure is to be completed by the banks while opening accounts and also periodically update the same.’ Even, on this website, the ‘letter issued by the National Population Register containing details of name and address’ is mentioned as OVD for the KYC verification, but not mentioned as mandatory.
As the advertisement by the Central Bank of India (on 11th January 2019) did not mention that only one among the list of OVD documents is needed for the KYC verification, there was a lot of confusion among the people regarding the NPR document. The Central Bank of India has published another advertisement with the clarification. In the clarification, published in Eenadu on 17th January 2020, it can be read that ‘any 1 document’ from the list of Officially Valid Documents need to be submitted for the KYC verification. Also, the same has been clarified by the Central Bank of India on Twitter. So, the NPR document is not mandatory if you can submit any other OVD for the KYC verification.
To sum it up, the NPR document is not mandatory for KYC in banks.
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