Customer Due Diligence (CDD) measures to be made applicable to Politically Exposed Person
(PEP) and their family members or close relatives. Before establishing any relationship with
the PEPs sufficient information including information about the sources of funds, accounts of
family members and close relatives shall be gathered and the identity of the person shall be
verified before accepting the PEP as a customer. The decision for entering into any business
relationship with a PEP, shall be taken at a senior level within the scope of Customer
Acceptance policy of the company. In the event of an existing customer or the beneficial
owner of an existing account, subsequently becoming PEP, the Company should obtain senior
management approval to continue the business relationship and subject the account to the
CDD measures as applicable to the customers of PEP category including enhanced monitoring
on an ongoing basis.
The similar procedure shall be applicable in case of accounts of PEP who are resident
outside India.
The instructions are also applicable to accounts where PEP is the ultimate beneficial owner.
Further, in regard to PEP accounts, the Company has appropriate ongoing risk management
procedures for identifying and applying enhanced CDD to PEPs, customers who are close
relatives of PEPs, and accounts of which PEP is the ultimate beneficial owner.
With the introduction of telephone and electronic banking, increasingly accounts are being
opened by banks for customers without the need for the customer to visit the bank branch.
In the case of non-face-to-face customers, apart from applying the usual customer
identification procedures, there must be specific and adequate procedures to mitigate the
higher risk involved. Certification of all the documents presented may be insisted upon and,
if necessary, additional documents may be called for. In such cases, the Company may also
require the first payment to be affected through the customer's KYC Compliant account with
another bank which, in turn, adheres to similar KYC standards. In the case of cross-border
customers, there is the additional difficulty of matching the customer with the
documentation and the bank may have to rely on third party certification/introduction. In
such cases, it must be ensured that the third party is a regulated and supervised entity and
has adequate KYC systems in place.
Correspondent banking is the provision of banking services by one bank (the “correspondent
bank”) to another bank (the “respondent bank”). These services may include cash/funds
management, international wire transfers, drawing arrangements for demand drafts and mail
transfers, payable- through-accounts, cheques clearing, etc. The Company shall gather
sufficient information to understand fully the nature of the business of the
correspondent/respondent bank. Information on the other bank’s management, major
business activities, level of AML/CFT compliance, purpose of opening the account, identity of
any third-party entities that will use the correspondent banking services, and
regulatory/supervisory framework in the correspondent's/respondent’s country may be of
special relevance. Similarly, the Company should try to ascertain from publicly available
information whether the other bank has been subject to any money laundering or terrorist
financing investigation or regulatory action. While it is desirable that such relationships should
be established only with the approval of the Board, in case the Boards wishes to delegate the
power to an administrative authority, they may delegate the power to a committee headed by
the Chairman/CEO the Company while laying down clear parameters for approving such
relationships. Proposals approved by the Committee should invariably be put up to the Board
at its next meeting for post facto approval. The responsibilities of each bank with whom