KYC norms promoting financial exclusion?

Know Your Customer norms could come in the way of financial inclusion of even the better-off people. In the closing session, titled ‘The Road to Inclusive Growth’, a member of the audience asked the panelists how a person holding a passport but with a Bihar residential address, and seeking to open a bank account in a big city where he works, could get a cooking gas connection or open bank account, if he did not have proof of residence. “Isn’t this financial exclusion?” he asked. Chanda Kochhar, MD and CEO of ICICI Bank answered, “We should see the intent of regulators who introduced the KYC norms, to ensure that money moves through the right challenge. The intent is correct, but the way it is implemented is a different thing. In banking, it brings transparency.”