KYC | SabrangIndia

Backdoor NPR-NRC? Parents DOB for KYC; great grandfather’s address for passport re-issue

Sat, 15 Feb 2020 10:44:48 +0000

West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee’s doubts that the ruling party may be using banks and post offices to collect data for the National Register of Citizens (NRC) may not be based on hearsay after all.

It came to Sabrang India’s notice that banks have now started asking for details of parents and their date of birth for Know Your Customer (KYC) registration. According to law, the documents acceptable as proof of identity / address are – passport, voter’s identity card, driving license, Aadhaar card, NREGA card, PAN card.

For minors, the proof of the person who will operate the account has to be submitted. For Non Resident Indians (NRIs), passport and residence visa copies attested by either the foreign offices, public notary, Indian Embassy or forex office of the branch are valid.

Nowhere for KYC registrations is it mentioned that the customers are supposed to provide the details of the parents or their date of birth. Once this information is given, the fears that the government will create legacy linkages in families to further their agenda with the CAA-NPR-NRC.

In another revelation, it has come to light that for a passport reissue, the Mumbai Police has allegedly asked details of a resident’s great grandfather’s place of birth. It has also not been mentioned anywhere in the police verification form or the re-issue form that the details of ancestors are required.

The police also said that if these details are not furnished, the police said that their applications will not be taken further and a new passport will not be granted.

Now that these instances have come forward, we can’t help but question, if the government is really trying to push the NPR and NRC through the backdoor by collecting this information.

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TN: NPR letter as KYC document causes panic, people withdraw money

Thu, 23 Jan 2020 06:42:47 +0000

Sabrang India had reported on January 16 that two nationalised banks had added the “NPR letter” to list of documents acceptable for KYC of customers. This was done after the RBI issued a directive to banks, a letter from NPR containing details of name and address is to be accepted by banks for opening a bank account or to fulfil any other KYC norms. The Central Bank of India issued a notification to this regard but later also issued a clarification stating that NPR letter is not a mandatory document.

Yet, it has led to panic in a village near Thoothukkudi in Tamil Nadu. Soon after the notification was issued by the local branch, hundreds of customers in Kayalpattinam village, many of them belonging to the Muslim community, reached the bank branch to withdraw their money.

Among the many people who withdrew their money was a government employee as well who said that she withdrew Rs. 50,000 from her account and that many customers of the bank had panicked. “Since we had the experience of demonetisation that forced us to stand in the queue for so many days, every customer who was panicked reached the bank. Bank officials were helpless as they couldn’t convince us why RBI included NPR in the list before it is even updated in most states,” she said.

One of the officials of Central bank of India said that similar reports had come in from few other branches. He also said that community leaders were approached to convince the people and to reassure them. “We approached community leaders and jamaat committees of Kayalpattinam to convince our customers as a large amount was withdrawn in less than three days. We do not even know if we could convince all customers and get them back to our branch,” the official said.

Community leaders managed to spread some awareness in their community and the situation seemed to be under control by Tuesday but by Monday evening the customers had already withdrawn Rs. 1 crore from their accounts. The official further said that no amount of convincing worked for the customers despite of community leaders stepping in. He said that most of their customers were Muslims and many of them had almost emptied their bank accounts.

However, this is not the case with all nationalised banks. Bank of Baroda, for example, has not issued a notification to this regard as of yet because “it doesn’t make sense in adding something that doesn’t exist,” said a senior officer of the bank.

The Assistant General Manager of Public relations at Central bank of India spoke about the issue and said that what happened in the village in Tamil Nadu was extremely unfortunate. He further explained that Aadhar card is proof enough and in case of PAN card, any other documents can be used for address proof like passport, voter identity card, driving licence, National Rural Employment Guarantee Act card. He said the NPR letter was merely added to this list of documents in case somebody possesses that document.

The point put forth by the Bank of Baroda official was also made by Sabrang India, as to why a document is added to the list of Officially Valid Documents when it does not even exist.

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Will banks require religion disclosure in KYC process?

Sat, 21 Dec 2019 05:47:15 +0000

Image Courtesy: federalbank.co.in

The Economic Times reported that soon banks might add a new column in their Know Your Customer (KYC) forms for depositors and clients to mention their religion. The report says that the requirement could be on account of changes to FEMA regulations that extend the benefits of opening NRO accounts to non-Muslim minorities from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.

According to the RBI’s website “A Citizen of Bangladesh/Pakistan belonging to minority communities in those countries i.e. Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians residing in India and who has been granted LTV or whose application for LTV is under consideration, can open only one NRO account with an AD bank subject to the conditions mentioned in Notification No. FEMA 5(R)/2016-RB dated April 01, 2016, as updated from time to time.” The entire notification may be read here.

Interestingly, this provision, and in fact the entire notification does not mention refugees from Afghanistan.

But this begs the question that if NRO accounts can be opened by these people how will the bank determine the religion of the applicant? Will it rely on surnames? Will banks leave such a major decision to mere speculation? Will it require people to disclose their religion? Will banks compel applicants to disclose religion? Is it being presumed that people seeking refuge due to religious persecution will be open to disclosing their religion? This is still a gray area.

Sabrang India had reported recently about how the RBI that controls the currency, banking system and monetary policy, issued Notification No. FEMA 21(R)/2018-RB on March 26, 2018 under the provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management (Acquisition and Transfer of Immovable Property in India) Regulations, 2018. Point 7 of this notification permitted non-Muslim minorities from the three countries mentioned in the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) to purchase property in India.

Related:

Did RBI help set the stage for CAA?

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