This page is about the operational shape of a know your client step inside an onboarding process, and not about what that step must contain. The distinction matters. What a regulated practice is required to do, what evidence satisfies it, and how it applies to a particular client are determined by your regulator, your professional body and your own compliance adviser. What a practice can decide for itself is where the step sits, who performs it, what it leaves behind, and how it is found again later, and those decisions are what make the difference between a process that survives scrutiny and one that merely happened.
Position it so it cannot be skipped
The step belongs at a point where the process cannot proceed without it, rather than as an item on a list that can be ticked later. Practices that place it as a gate find it is always done. Practices that place it alongside twenty other tasks find it is usually done, and usually is the word that causes trouble. Where exactly the gate sits in your process is a matter for your own adviser.
Record what was relied on, not just that it was done
A tick showing the step is complete answers nothing later. What answers a question later is the document that was examined, who examined it, on what date, and what conclusion they reached. Store those against the client record rather than in the performer's own files, because the performer will eventually not be available and the question will arrive anyway, sometimes years afterwards.
Treat it as recurring, because circumstances change
Whatever the applicable requirements are, information collected at the start ages. So the record needs a date on it and a way to surface what may be due for revisiting, rather than an assumption that onboarding settled it permanently. Building that in from the beginning is far cheaper than reconstructing dates across a client book later, which is what firms end up doing when the record holds only outcomes.
Questions people ask about client onboarding kyc
Does this page tell us what KYC requires?
No, deliberately. Requirements depend on your jurisdiction, your sector and your regulator, and they change. This site publishes none of them; your own compliance adviser is the source.
Can software perform the check?
Software can hold the step, store the evidence, record who did it and when, and prevent it being bypassed. The judgement remains a person's, and any product implying otherwise is overstating what it does.
Should the step be visible to the client?
The request usually is, and explaining briefly why you are asking noticeably improves how quickly clients respond. The internal record and conclusion are yours.