Know Your Customer or KYC as it is better referred to as  is the bank regulation that financial institutions and other regulated companies must perform to identify their clients and ascertain relevant information pertinent to doing financial business with them.

The objective of KYC guidelines is to prevent banks from being used, intentionally or unintentionally, by criminal elements for money laundering activities. KYC procedures also enable banks to know/understand their customers and their financial dealings better which in turn help them manage their risks prudently.

KYC is primarily done when you apply for a DEMAT account / initiate activating Mutual Fund and elsewhere the money laundering activities are possible.

There is not much you need to do to get KYC done. You just need to fill up a form (that you can get from the financial institution you are associated with) and submit it along with a copy of PAN card and some address proof document.

After you have submitted these documents, it takes close to a month for KYC process to get completed.

CVL India is responsible of doing the KYC check. CVL or CDSL Ventures Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Central Depository Services (India) Limited (CDSL), a leading securities depository in the India.

You can check the status of your KYC application by just entering your PAN and fetching the status.

• Visit KYC status check link.

• Enter your PAN and select Submit

• Your KYC application status is displayed.

If you have submitted your KYC application just now, wait for couple of days for it to reach them and update their system.

Update: 7th Apr 2011

After around two months of form submission, KYC status changed to Verified.

Update: 7th Jan 2013

Based upon the information from one of our readers, CVL has moved the KYC status check page.

• Visit KYC status check updated link
• Enter your PAN or Name, DOB & Exempt Category
• Enter Captcha code and click Submit
• Your record will be displayed