Skip to main content

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​