Introduction to KYC

Know Your Customer (KYC) is an identity verification requirement by the CBN for all account holders. It allows us to record and confirm who owns a particular bank account.

According to CBN regulations, there are three different tiers of KYC verification. Each tier has its own requirements and limits (in case the customer does not meet them).

🚧

Important to Note:

KYC Verification is non-negotiable if you want to create/issue Fixed Accounts or Cards to your customers.

If you do not want to have to do KYC, you may want to consider using Collection Accounts. While it has limitations, your customers do not need to do KYC for you to issue/create a Collection Account.

Before you start

Here are a few things to note:

1. Once a customer has been verified on your organization, you no longer have to verify them for subsequent accounts or cards owned by that customer.
2. The KYC details of a customer apply globally across all of Bloc's products. This is why it is important to always start with the Customer module when integrating into your application.
3. KYC verification is done on a customer, not on the account or card created. An account or card only requires a customer to have been verified for it to work properly.
4. All customers begin at Tier 0. There are three tiers of KYC verification each with their requirements.
5. If a customer's account goes over a KYC limit, their account will be frozen until they provide the required documents. Frozen accounts cannot send or receive money.
6. Bloc currently only supports KYC verification for individual customers.

Definitions

Tier 0

By default, all customers start here. When you create a new customer, their KYC tier is automatically 0.

The information required here is first name, surname, email address, and bvn.

Tier 1

This is the basic level for any account holder. The information required at this tier is address, country, date of birth, place of birth, gender, and passport photo.

This is the lowest KYC tier and the easiest to provide by any customer. Once provided, the customers can begin to use their account, but there are limits. If customers go beyond these limits, their accounts will be blocked or reported until they upgrade KYC to the next tier.

In this tier, customers are limited to:

1. a maximum available balance of ₦300,000.
2. a maximum single deposit of ₦50,000.
3. a maximum transfer/withdrawal limit of ₦3,000.
4. a maximum daily cumulative debit amount of ₦30,000.

Tier 2

For customers who need to do more with their accounts, they’ll need to provide more information to verify their details. In this tier, the information required is means of ID and an image of the ID. Typically, this should be a nationally recognised identification document like a voter’s card, international passport, national ID card, or NIN slip.

Company identity cards are not recognised.

In this tier, customers are limited to:

1. a maximum available balance of ₦500,000.
2. a maximum single deposit of ₦200,000.
3. a maximum transfer/withdrawal limit of ₦10,000.
4. a maximum daily cumulative debit amount of ₦100,000.

Tier 3

This is the highest level of KYC verification. In this tier, the only information required is liveliness check.

A liveliness check is an important factor in detecting fraud. It is powered by a technology that can differentiate photos/videos taken in real-time and those taken from a copy of a photo.

In this tier, customers have the following restrictions:

1. no limit on their maximum available balance.
2. a maximum single deposit of ₦5,000,000.
3. a maximum transfer/withdrawal limit of ₦1,000,000.
4. a maximum daily cumulative debit amount of ₦5,000,000.