AMENDMENT TO KYC: MEASURES WHILE DEALING WITH THE WIRE TRANSFER

 Pursuant to a recent amendment to KYC Master Direction, RBI on Thursday (May 4) advised Regulated Entities (RE) like banks and financial institutions to undertake certain measures while dealing with the Wire Transfer in terms of said amendment.

Information requirements for cross-border, as well as domestic wire transfers in terms of the latest guidelines, are as under.

Cross-border wire transfers:

All cross-border wire transfers shall be accompanied by accurate, complete, and meaningful originator and beneficiary information mentioned below.

• Name of the originator;
• The originator account number where such an account is used to process the transaction;

• The originator’s address, national identity number, customer identification number, date and place of birth;

•  Name of the beneficiary; and the beneficiary account number where such an account is used to process the transaction.

In the absence of an account, a unique transaction reference number should be included which permits traceability of the transaction.

Batch transfer:

In the case of batch transfer, where several individual cross-border wire, transfers from a single originator are bundled in a batch file for transmission to beneficiaries, they (i.e., individual transfers) are exempted from the requirements of clause (i) above in respect of originator information, provided that they include the originator’s account number or unique transaction reference number, as mentioned above, and the batch file contains required and accurate originator information, and full beneficiary information, that is fully traceable within the beneficiary country.

Domestic wire transfer:

Domestic wire transfer, where the originator is an account holder of the ordering Regulated Entity (RE) like a bank, shall be accompanied by the originator and beneficiary information, as indicated for cross-border wire transfers in (i) and (ii) above.

In case the Domestic wire transfers of Rupees fifty thousand and above, where the originator is not an account holder of the ordering RE, shall also be accompanied by the originator and beneficiary information as indicated for cross-border wire transfers.

The Customer Due Diligence (CDD) measures in the case of non-individual customers, individual customers, and Sole Proprietary Firms have been amended to include certain additional information/document requirements. To know more read: KYC amendment related to CDD