How to do KYC and FATCA Compliance – A quick guide

Have you submitted your KYC and FATCA details?

As an existing mutual fund investor, you would have done your KYC (Know your Customer). As a part of the process, you submit specific information about your identity, residence, income and political exposure.

That is not enough for now! There is an additional requirement that has come up for existing mutual fund investors.I quote the following from the web page of MF Utility, a mutual fund industry initiative –

As per regulations, existing investors in Mutual Funds who have opened their accounts prior to 31st October 2015, have to submit Additional KYC, Foreign Account Tax Compliant Act (FATCA), Common Reporting System (CRS) declarations and submit Ultimate Beneficiary Ownership (UBO) details (wherever applicable) latest by 31st December 2015. Kindly note that effective January 1, 2016, financial transactions for purchase/switch of Units are liable to be rejected by the Mutual Funds if these details are not updated.

If you read the last sentence highlighted above, it clearly states that your future transactions in mutual funds may not go through if you do not provide the required additional information for your KYC and FATCA.

So, have you complied with additional KYC and FATCA requirements?

If YES, then great. No need to worry. You can continue to make your investments.

If NO, then you need to do it now. In case you are wondering how to do it, here is some help.

How to provide the additional details for KYC and FATCA?

Thankfully, you can submit additional KYC and FATCA compliant information online through the respective registrar and transfer agents like CAMS, Karvy, Franklin, Sundaram and the industry aggregator MF Utility.

CAMS – For all CAMS serviced mutual funds like HDFC, DSP, etc. Here, you will have to choose at least one fund house where you have invested and then go ahead to generate a One Time Password (OTP). Input other information as required along with the OTP and submit. Voila! You are done. Click here to submit details online at CAMS.

Karvy – For all Karvy serviced mutual funds such as Reliance, Quantum, etc. This is the simplest procedure. Generate an OTP, input other additional details and submit. You are done. Click here to submit details online at Karvy.

Franklin India – For Franklin Templeton India Mutual Fund. Here, you need to have your customer folio or account number ready with you. You cannot proceed without it. Click here to submit details online at Franklin.

Sundaram Mutual Fund – For Sundaram Mutual Fund, you need to provide your PAN, Mobile Number and Email ID to submit the details online. Click here submit FATCA details online at Sundaram.

MF Utility – The easiest of course is the industry aggregated platform MF Utility. At a single location, you can comply for all the mutual funds in the industry. The only limitation is that you need to have a CAN or a Common Account Number, without which you would not be able to use this system. Click here to submit details online at MF Utility.

The information that you need to provide is:

1. Your PAN
2. Bank account Number
3. Date of Birth
4. Country and Place of Birth
5. Gross Annual Income, OR Net Worth and Date of calculating the Net Worth
6. Occupation
7. Whether you are a Politically Exposed Person or related to one
8. If your [investor’s] tax residency is other than India, then following information for all countries in which you are resident for tax purposes is required:
   • Country of Tax Residency [also include USA, where the individual is a citizen/green card holder of the USA]
   • Tax Identification Number
   •  Identification Type [TIN or Other, to be specified]

You need to update the information only once with one entity, and it will get updated across folios or AMCs serviced by that registrar. Having said that, you need to submit once to each of the registrars, that is, CAMS, Karvy, Franklin and Sundaram. MF Utility is going to be one place where all your folios will be updated with the information.

It takes just a few minutes to provide these details. Don’t delay it. 

Do it now. Keep your Mutual Funds working for you.

Please note the above requirements, as also the online updating facility, are only for individual investors.

If you are a non-individual investor, you will have to submit details through a physical form. In their case, they also need to specify the Ultimate Beneficial Ownership details.

In case you are not sure whether your KYC is completed and registered, you can check on CVL’s website here or CAMS website here. All you have to do is enter your PAN and the system will display your KYC status.

If I may request, do share your experience of completing this process of KYC and FATCA compliance. It would help others too.