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PTI and KYC

Know Your Customer (KYC) processes establish identity assurance at onboarding — document verification, liveness checks, registry lookups, and risk classification. PTI does not perform KYC checks itself; it orchestrates KYC outcomes as attestable trust signals and composes them with ongoing behavioral evidence.

1. What KYC is​

KYC is a regulatory and operational workflow for verifying that a customer is who they claim to be and assessing initial customer risk. Components typically include:

  • Document verification — ID card, passport, driver's license OCR and authenticity checks
  • Biometric liveness — presentation attack detection
  • Registry and watchlist screening — national ID databases, sanctions initial pass
  • Customer due diligence (CDD) — occupation, source of funds, expected activity
  • Enhanced due diligence (EDD) — elevated scrutiny for high-risk profiles

KYC produces a verification outcome — pass, fail, refer, or expire — tied to a point-in-time onboarding event.

2. What problem KYC solves​

ProblemKYC response
Identity fraud at onboardingDocument + biometric verification
Regulatory CDD obligationStructured customer risk file
Shell company creationBusiness registry and UBO checks
Sanctions exposure at intakeInitial screening against lists

KYC answers: Is this customer's identity sufficiently verified for us to establish a relationship? It does not track ongoing trust behavior — repayment, rental history, employment tenure — across partner networks.

3. What PTI adds​

KYC

  • Point-in-time identity verification
  • Onboarding risk tier
  • Per-institution customer file

PTI adds

  • KYC as trust signal — verification outcomes become attestable events
  • Portable proof — verified status travels with pti_id
  • Context composition — KYC + lending/rental/merchant signals together
  • Explainability — drivers show identity verification weight in outcomes

Under PTI's Composable design principle, KYC vendor output is an input signal, not a competing system. A verification.passed trust event in the appropriate context reduces repeated re-KYC when institutions share a governed trust fabric.

4. How they compose together​

Integration pattern:

  1. Institution or partner runs KYC through existing vendor or in-house stack.
  2. On successful verification, emit a trust event (verification type, assurance level, expiry) to PTI under entitled contexts — e.g., merchant, lending.
  3. Ongoing partner activity (repayments, lease payments, employment confirmations) adds behavioral signals.
  4. Downstream institution requests trust lookup — receiving KYC verification as one driver among context-scoped evidence.

PTI never substitutes for regulatory KYC obligation at the consuming institution; it reduces redundant verification and enriches decisions with portable behavioral proof.

5. When to use each​

ScenarioKYCPTI
New account opening regulatory checkRequiredOptional (signal export)
Re-KYC every time customer applies at new MFIKYC only (expensive)PTI reduces duplication via portable verification signals
Ongoing transaction monitoringKYC sets baselinePTI adds cross-context behavioral trust
Merchant marketplace seller onboardingRequiredRecommended for portable seller trust
Anonymous browsingNeitherNeither

Institutions retain KYC accountability; PTI provides infrastructure to share and compose verification artifacts under governance.

See also​