Know your KYC: and show some gratitude to the faceless warriors who freeze your bank account

The Hindu

10-07-2025

I can barely see the screen through my tears as I type this. The tears — of joy, relief, and vikaas — won't stop! I had to pinch myself three times to make sure I'm not dreaming. But it's true — I really have updated my KYC. I can now finally access my own money in my own bank account. Words can't describe how amazing it feels. It's a pity, though, that people who haven't been locked out of their accounts will never get to experience it.
I'm aware that, even as I celebrate my successful KYC updation by distributing rosogollas to strangers standing in queue at the nearest SBI branch, countless Indians are still running through hoops of biometric authentication. Thousands have fallen by the wayside trying to match the address on their passbook with the address on their Aadhaar card. Tens of thousands have quit their jobs and dedicated their lives to feeding OTPs to whomsoever it may concern. Millions are popping pills to control the panic attacks triggered by yet another SMS threatening to freeze their account unless they renew their KYC before the stroke of midnight on the next Amavasai.
And yet, despite the indiscriminate freezing of accounts, the remarkable lack of common sense in the application of re-KYC rules, and the admirably pig-headed refusal to use the central repository of KYC, all I'm feeling right now, believe it or not, is a quiet sense of accomplishment and pride.
We are all customers
It is not every day that an ordinary Indian with no connections gets any institution-facing work done, let alone update his KYC. My friends tell me the last Indian to accomplish a feat of comparable difficulty level and equivalent historical significance was Shri Shubhanshu Shukla. But I want to make two simple points here. One, we still don't know whether Shuklaji has updated his KYC or if it is still pending, whereas I have. Two, Shuklaji's space trip was fully paid for by the government of India, while no one paid a penny for my multiple trips to the bank, to the photocopy shop, to the Aadhaar centre, and to the top of the Statue of Unity, from where I wanted to (bungee) jump every time my re-KYC documents were rejected. Nonetheless, I bear no ill-will towards anyone — only gratitude.
This column is a satirical take on life and society.
When I say I feel gratitude, people are shocked. This makes me sad, for it shows that most Indians are clueless about the historical origins and real purpose of KYC. Yes, at the superficial level, KYC means 'Know Your Customer'. But the concept originates in the ancient Greek philosophical dictum, 'gnothi seauton'. Inscribed outside the Apollo Temple (not Apollo Hospital) in Delphi, it means 'know yourself'. This imperative, which formed the basis of Athenian banking practices, is rooted in the insight that human beings spend their whole lives buying something or the other. As Socrates said, 'The ultimate truth about human nature is that we are all customers.' But how many of us appreciate this truth? In my experience, no one does — not without multiple reminders via email and SMS. Hence, my gratitude. So bear with me as I take this opportunity to place it on record.
Strange motivation
Firstly, I want to thank India's indefatigable band of money-launderers. Without you, there would have been no KYC, and I wouldn't have embarked on this long, perilous, frustrating, yet ultimately rewarding journey of self-discovery.
Next, I am indebted to the RBI. It's been under tremendous pressure to simplify the KYC framework, and poor thing, despite being forced to produce a 17th version of KYC rules — just one short of Karl Marx's 18th Brumaire — it has staunchly resisted calls to make bankers accountable to their customers. Kudos!
Last but not the least, I want to thank each and every one of the bankers without whose unstinting non-cooperation, jaw-dropping idiocy, and endless appetite for documents they had already taken from me multiple times, I would never have learnt the difficult life lesson of how to survive in a world without empathy, logic or professionalism. Bankers come in all shapes and sizes, and the breed I am most grateful to are the faceless KYC warriors who pull the trigger that freezes your account — a move that never fails to motivate even the laziest of us to rouse ourselves from our humdrum lives of quiet despair, scoot to the nearest branch and ask aggressively for a token.
Finally, a gentle word of advice to customers whining endlessly about their accounts being frozen without warning: just shut up and re-KYC.
The author of this satire, is Social Affairs Editor, The Hindu.
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