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Video KYC Audit Trail: What RBI Expects You to Store and for How Long
There’s a compliance conversation happening inside every regulated lending institution right now, and it’s not about whether to do Video KYC — that decision was made years ago. The conversation is about what happens after the call ends. Specifically: what did you record, where did it go, who can access it, how long does it…
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Re-KYC in Banks: When It’s Required, What It Covers, and How to Automate It
KYC gets a lot of attention when onboarding. Re-KYC, the periodic updation of that same information, gets far less — until an account is frozen, a compliance audit surfaces a gap, or the regulator issues a fresh circular reminding banks of obligations that were always there. For compliance teams and product managers building verification infrastructure,…
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Udyam Registration Verification: What It Means for MSME Lending
Walk into any credit team at a fintech or NBFC that does MSME lending, and you’ll find some version of the same conversation happening. An application comes in. The business looks legitimate. The Udyam certificate is attached. And somewhere in the process, someone has to decide: do we trust this document, or do we check…
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From Pixels to Proof: OCR Document Verification Made It Real
If you’ve ever tried to verify a document from a photo taken in a dimly lit room, you already know the problem: the text is crooked, the edges are cut off, there’s glare on the seal, and the logo is slightly different from the last version you saw. Humans can often infer what the document…
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Deepfake Dilemma: Why Your Next Customer Might Not Even Exist
Imagine this: A new customer signs up on your lending app. The KYC process looks smooth. Documents check out. The face on the video matches perfectly. Within minutes, their loan is approved and disbursed. But here’s the twist—this customer never existed. The photo was AI-generated. The “video KYC” was a deepfake. The bank account belongs…
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Penny Drop Verification: Preventing Fraud, One Rupee at a Time
In our modern digital-first economy, companies and financial institutions handle thousands of transactions daily. From onboarding a new supplier to paying salaries, refunding amounts, and confirming beneficiary information, a small mistake in a bank account number can spell financial and reputational disaster. Penny Drop Verification comes to the rescue here—silently, speedily, and successfully verifying that…
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Cracking MSME Onboarding in Bharat: KYB Challenges & Solutions
A few days ago, I met an old colleague who now runs SME lending at an NBFC. Over tea, he vented about a customer they had to reject. This business owner from Indore had been running a small manufacturing unit for nearly a decade. He employed 30 people, paid taxes regularly, and had a spotless…
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The Hidden Hero of India’s DPI: Customer Journey Orchestration
India’s Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) has been recognized as one of the most successful and ambitious digital inclusion experiments in the entire globe. A courageous effort to give every Indian a digital identity via Aadhaar began, which eventually turned into a network of interoperable systems—UPI, DigiLocker, Account Aggregator, ONDC, among others—that reach almost every facet…
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Video KYC Process: Speed, Security, Compliance in One Frame
If you’ve ever opened a bank account some years ago , you probably remember the drill—forms, signatures, and waiting in a crowded branch. Some people still carry that memory of rushing to the photocopy shop to get “two passport-size photos” before an application. What was meant to be a simple process often ate up half…
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Speed vs. Safety: The Trade-Off in Digital Onboarding
Remember the last time you opened a bank account, took out a loan, or signed up on a new fintech app. You probably didn’t go to a branch, complete several forms, or wait days to see if you were approved. Rather, you snapped a photo of your ID, perhaps took a selfie, and—voilà—you were in.…
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Rethinking KYC: How Indian Banks Are Using APIs to Stay Ahead
If you’ve ever opened a bank account in India a few years back, you’ll remember the drill—forms in triplicate, passport photos, signatures on half a dozen pages, and a wait that felt endless. That was KYC in its paper era. Things look very different now. A savings account can be set up in minutes on…
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Inside the Identity Theft Boom: What’s Driving the Surge
A few years ago, my friend got a call from “her bank.” The voice on the other end was polite, well-spoken, and oddly familiar. It was asking about a flagged transaction, reading out her account details, and even confirming her date of birth. Something didn’t feel right, so she hung up. Two hours later, her…
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Face Based Biometrics: Changing Identity Verification?
Not too long ago, protecting your identity online was a matter of memorising a tricky password or carrying around some form of ID. Back then, it felt adequate. These tools gave us a sense of control—until they didn’t. Now, data breaches are a weekly headline. Passwords leak. ID cards are forged. Even “secure” two-factor authentication…