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2020-12-28

Verifying the Identity of Customers via a Reliable Source

The Saudi Central Bank ("SAMA") has issued a circular requiring supervised financial institutions to verify that customer mobile numbers match the account holders' national IDs through the "Tahakom" (Verification Service). Institutions must evaluate existing accounts for mismatches, submit evaluation results and corrective plans to SAMA, and adopt the verified mobile number registration for all new account or membership openings. Compliance with these enhanced "Know Your Customer" procedures is mandatory within 45 days, with regulatory enforcement actions applied to non-compliant entities.

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Saudi Arabia

Saudi Central Bank

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Saudi Central Bank

Circular

Reference No.: 42031578 Date: 13/05/1442 AH Attachments: None

To: Peace, mercy and blessings of God be upon you, Subject: Verifying the Identity of Customers via a Reliable Source.

In line with the Saudi Central Bank's ("SAMA") commitment to improving practices and procedures in supervised financial institutions, and its efforts to support and develop the financial sector while considering risks, and periodically reviewing updates to ensure necessary measures are taken to enhance the maturity of financial institutions, conduct periodic follow-ups, and issue relevant instructions, and based on SAMA's periodic follow-up of fraud cases in financial institutions, which has shown the need to strengthen the "Know Your Customer" (KYC) principle by including an additional documentation mechanism in counter and remote account/membership opening procedures, as well as for currently existing customer accounts/memberships by linking the account holder's mobile number registered with the financial institution to the number approved by "Tahakom" (Verification Service), in order to support information verification and help reduce identity theft through enhanced procedures and reliance on nationally recognized reliable sources, you are hereby informed that financial institutions must undertake the following:

  1. Verify that the mobile number linked to an account or membership in a financial institution currently belongs to the same person by matching the national ID number of the account holder with the national ID number of the mobile number owner in "Tahakom" (Verification Service), such that the matching process covers all customer accounts/memberships.
  2. Evaluate the current status and determine the number of customers and accounts/memberships with mismatched numbers currently registered with the financial institution, based on (1) for existing customer accounts/memberships.
  3. Provide the Central Bank with the evaluation results, as well as the financial institution's corrective plan to achieve matching of the account holder's identity with the identity of the mobile number owner linked to the account for all accounts/memberships.
  4. Adopt the registration of a customer's mobile number approved by "Tahakom" (Verification Service) as part of the procedures for opening new bank accounts or memberships.
  5. Comply with the above within a period not exceeding (45) days from its date.
  1. Ensure compliance with the instructions contained in the Bank Account Opening Rules and other related instructions, and their effectiveness within the financial institution.

For your information and action, noting that the Saudi Central Bank will take the necessary regulatory actions in case of non-compliance with the prescribed procedures within the specified time limit above.

Yours sincerely,

Fahd bin Ibrahim Al-Shathri Deputy Governor for Supervision

Scope of Distribution:

  • Banks operating in the Kingdom.
  • Financing companies operating in the Kingdom.
  • Payment service providers.
  • Category (A) exchange centers.

P.O. Box 2992, Riyadh 11169, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia | Phone: +966 11 4633000

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