KYC (Know Your Customer)

KYC is the set of checks a regulated business runs before it takes someone on as a customer: confirming an identity document is genuine, that the person presenting it is its holder, and that the details on file match. In lending it is the gate between an application and a decision.

Done manually it means scanned documents, email threads, and a colleague squinting at a photograph. Done as part of a workflow it means the applicant completes verification in their own portal, structured data comes back - name, document number, date of birth, nationality - and the evidence is attached to the case for whoever reviews it later.

The point of automating KYC is not speed on its own. It is that the same standard is applied to every applicant, and that a year later you can still show what was checked and when.