KYC and FATCA

How KYC and FATCA can stop your mutual fund investments?

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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. KYC is mandatory.

In case you are not sure whether your KYC is completed, 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 show your KYC status.

That is not enough!

So, if you thought you are done with your KYC, you are in for a surprise. Yes, your current KYC information is not enough. 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.

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 again the last sentence highlighted above, that is what I was referring when I mentioned that your mutual fund investments can STOP.

The “why is this required” is another story. The crux of the matter is that if you wish to continue making your mutual fund transactions without a hitch, then you have to provide these additional details as soon as possible.

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 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 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 at Franklin.

Sundaram Mutual Fund – Sundaram Mutual mandates submission of a physical form for complying with this requirement. You can login to Sundaram Mutual Fund’s website and submit details online but you will have to follow it up with the physical form too. Click here to download the form for Sundaram.

UPDATE: Sundaram Mutual Fund is also accepting FATCA details online. Click here submit FATCA details for 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 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 and Franklin.

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

Do it now.

IMPORTANT: What do you know about your mutual fund portfolio?

Now track all your mutual funds at one place. Not just that get insightful reports and analysis that tell you so much more about your portfolio. All with a 1 click upload of your mutual fund portfolio on Unovest.  Click here to know more.

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.

Interested in knowing more about FATCA? HDFC Mutual Fund has an interesting set of FAQs. You can read them here.

Hope this helps. In case you have any questions, do email them across or share in the comments.

25 thoughts on “How KYC and FATCA can stop your mutual fund investments?”

  1. Dear Mr Vipin Khandelwal,

    Any idea whether Mf Utility have started online investment in mutual funds for HUFs?

  2. Dear Mr Vipin Khandelwal,

    If one had invested in child plans of mutual funds when the children were minor , subsequently no new additional mutual funds investment have been made & now the children are major, can one redeem the the said old investments or children’s KYC is mandatory in view of status change from minor to major?

  3. Dear sir/Madam
    The information that you need to provide is:
    5 Gross Annual Income, OR Net Worth and Date of calculating the Net Worth
    You have mentioned abovepoint no5.You are requested to give
    rule or authentic reference
    Thanking you,
    Parmanand N jethani

  4. Thanks for the info Vipin. It has been really confusing about KYC. I used the links provided by you to update the information online and even received confirmatory emails. But there seems to be another problem as many mutual funds sites show my KYC status as not verified.

    I have been a KYC verified investor since 2011 and have been investing online through Kotak Securities. Since then, I have been able to invest in new Mutual Fund SIPs without any problem. When I check my status, it shows “CVL MF KYC” and suggests that marital status, proof of permanent address and IPV details are missing. I am still able to invest through Kotak Securities but I want to invest in direct plans and the AMCs are showing the status as not verified. Do I need to reapply offline for KYC with IPV? What is the time taken for such a process? Thanks.

    • Hello Gagan. 100% agree that KYC is utterly confusing.

      Now based on what you have mentioned, if you have been able to invest so far, it means that your KYC is verified. You can try a small hack here. Try and make a new investment (a small amount) into any of the funds that is part of your portfolio. If it goes through then not to worry.

      The other simple thing that you can do is to redo your KYC. Thankfully, you can do KYC online, also called eKYC. You can visit Quantum MF’s link https://ekyc.quantumamc.com. It is free of cost.

      Hope this helps. Regards

      • Thanks for the prompt reply Vipin. I indeed did place a small purchase purchase order through SBI MF which showed my KYC status to be OK. Since the markets were closed, I’ll only get to know today if the order goes through. Oddly, ICICI doesn’t allow me to register online as it state that KYC is not verified while DSP Blackrock does allow me to register and probably invest also but it also displays the status as not verified. There is simply is no uniformity across AMCs.

        I also did try out the link you provided but don’t really understand how eIPV works. If I go through offline process through Karvy or Cams, how long would it take for the KYC status to be KRA compliant? Thanks.

  5. Hi, I got emails for submitting FATCA-CRS from Aviva and Karvy, but the forms to be submitted were different. Also, is this declaration being sought from all MF investors or only selective ones?

    • Hello Nikhil, The information being asked for by various registrars happens to be varied, unfortunately. However, the information being asked for is all available with you.
      This information is being asked from all MF investors. Use the links in the articles to submit your information online. Thanks.

    • Since HUF is treated as a non-individual entity, you would have to do it offline through physical forms. Each of the registrars or the AMC websites can give you forms to download for the same. Hope this helps.

  7. Hi, I got email regarding FATCA/CRS/ADDL KYC only from DSP BR AMC, to which I emailed them the scanned copy. Wanted to know if this will be done for all AMCs under CAMS or I need to do it Online through CAMS/KARVY/FT?

    • Thanks for the comment. In my view, the DSP BR would have been done only at the AMC level. You could exercise abundant caution and use the online links to submit information to all the registrars.

  8. Hi Vipin,

    I submitted the details via MF Utility link. I didn’t get acknowledgement whether the details are submitted.

    I dropped an e-mail to them asking the same. But, I didn’t get any reply from them. Do you have any idea on how can we know whether the given details are accepted and updated across all AMCs ?

    Regards,
    Hemanth.

  9. In fact, all AMCs are individually informing their clients/investors through letters/email to fill in the above required information and submit the same to them. It takes only less than 2 minutes to fill-up the Form which came on email and submit it back. Additionally only 5 to 8 serial numbered (as above in your blog) is required to submit, rest all information are already with them.

    • That’s interesting. I received an email from only one AMC.

      Anyways, you are right that it is a fairly simple process and should be completed at the earliest to avoid any future inconvenience.

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