Cost-efficient Blockchain-based e-KYC Platform using Biometric verification

Know Your Customer (KYC) is the authentication and verification process of the user carried out in the financial sector by institutions such as banks, insurance companies, fintech companies, etc., and other sectors such as smart healthcare, real estate, telecommunication, online gaming and gambling companies before engaging in any financial activities. The KYC process is made mandatory for Financial Institutions (FIs) by governments worldwide to keep a check on terror financing and money laundering activities. However, the traditional physical KYC process has limitations such as high operational costs, large time consumption, privacy and security issues, repetitive processes across multiple institutions and user inconvenience. Hence, the FIs are looking for alternatives to the physical KYC. The digitization of the KYC process, known as e-KYC, was explored but had problems such as a single point of failure, repetition of KYC process across multiple FIs and lack of security. Blockchain-based e-KYC has become popular these days and caught the eye of FIs due to inherent properties of the blockchain such as decentralization, transparency, and immutable ledger. Moreover, blockchain-based solution is highly secure and cost-efficient. This paper proposes a blockchain-based e-KYC platform where users can register themselves and get their video KYC done after ether payment. Once successfully verified, the user will receive a KYC key. The user will submit this key to the banks or other FIs in which he wants to register. The FIs can verify whether the user has undergone the KYC process by looking in the blockchain using the KYC key. Our solution requires the user to submit his documents only at the e-KYC platform and not at different FIs for registration, thus preserving his privacy and, at the same time, ensuring the user’s authenticity.