KYC

KYC (Know Your Customer) is the onboarding process where a financial institution verifies who you are before letting you open an account — ID document, selfie with liveness check, proof of address, sometimes source of funds. It's the regulatory floor for almost anything that touches money at scale: banks, brokers, exchanges, remittance apps. The actual document and biometric checks are usually outsourced to specialists (Jumio, Onfido, Sumsub) because doing it well means fraud models, document forgery detection, and compliance across 100+ jurisdictions. KYC is the static "who are you" check at signup; AML is the ongoing "what are you doing" monitoring after.