KYC is the working name for the identity side of customer due diligence. A firm identifies the customer, verifies that identity from a reliable and independent source, and records what the customer intends to do with the account or policy. For a company, KYC extends to the people behind it: the directors, the shareholders and the ultimate beneficial owner.
The term is not defined in Hong Kong law. The duties sit in Schedule 2 of the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance under the name customer due diligence, and each regulator's guideline says which documents and sources it accepts. The HKMA guideline accepts a government body, a recognised digital identification system or another reliable and independent source as the basis for verification.
Why it matters
KYC is where most compliance failures start. A file that holds a scanned identity card and nothing else cannot show who confirmed the identity, when, or whether the card was genuine. Regulators ask for the source and the time of each check.
How Fill Easy relates to it
Fill Easy returns government-confirmed identity through GovVerify: iAM Smart in Hong Kong, China eID in Mainland China, Singpass in Singapore and UAE Pass in the United Arab Emirates, each with the individual's consent and with the source and retrieval time on the result. For the company side, CorpVerify returns the registry record, so the KYC file rests on the register rather than on a copy.