KYChain: User-controlled KYC data sharing and certification

Abstract

Under Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations, financial institutions are required to verify the identity and assess the trustworthiness of any new client during on-boarding, and maintain up-to-date records for risk management. These processes are time consuming, expensive, typically have sub-par record-keeping steps, and disadvantage clients with nomad lifestyle. In this paper, we introduce KYChain as a privacy-preserving certification mechanism that allows users to share (certified) up-to-date KYC data across multiple financial institutions. We base KYChain on immutable ledgers and show that it offers confidentiality and certification compliance of KYC data.