Aadhaar is a controversial document, especially for privacy enthusiasts; but it did make our lives convenient, especially for first time investors who no longer had to stand in queues and visit broker offices or send letters through snail mail to get their KYC done before they can start investing in SEBI regulated stock market and mutual funds products.
The SEBI e-KYC even though convenient, comes with a caviet – the annual investment amount can not exceed Rs. 50,000. This may come as a scary surprise to those who invest large sums at end of the financial year in ELSS funds for tax saving purpose. The only way to remove this eKYC investnent limit is by converting your eKYC to full KYC – that’s easier said than done, because full KYC procedure requires you filling multiples pages of a long form and then physically submitting it at nearest broker office along with original documents. Not only this is inconvenient, for someone living in a remote town with limited financial services around, this could be a headache.
Fortunately, there is a way around this. I recently learnt a trick to convert SEBI Aadhaar E-KYC to Full KYC all online, and you don’t have to even step out of your door. Read along to findout how!
After the recent historic Aadhaar judgement by the Supreme Court, which limited use of Aadhar while rendering various services, SEBI released new guidelines for KYC – the full KYC could now be done online and the physical verification can be substituted with a video call or short video recording of investor speaking their name. However for some reason, this new procedure is not widespread and I could hardly found a few select mutual fund service providers who had enabled this option to get full KYC done.
The direct mutual fund apps Growww and Paytm Money were the only MF brokers who I found were allowing customers to convert eKYC to full kYC, all online! Those who never had KYC done can also get direct full KYC done through these apps. My experience with Paytm Money app was slightly better than Growww.
All you have to do is register an account on either Growww or Paytm Money app. Once you enter your PAN details, the app will be able to check and let you know if you are already KYC compliant. If you never had KYC done, or you have eKYC, these apps will prompt you to upload your selfie, front and back of Aadhaar card and PAN card. After these, the app will ask you to record a 5 second video of yourself speaking your full legal name and upload it. Once this is done, it will take anywhere from upto 15 days to over a month for the process to complete and your eKYC will be converted to regular KYC, all online! You can keep track of KYC status through this Karvy KYC search portal.
Fortunately these services don’t charge anything for the KYC process, nor they demand any investment commitment. So that’s how easy it is to convert an eKYC to full KYC online!