KYC (Know Your Customer) — KYC (Know Your Customer) is the regulatory requirement for financial institutions to verify the identity of every customer at account opening, satisfied in the US by collecting and validating name, date of birth, address, and SSN/ITIN against authoritative sources.
KYC is mandated by the Bank Secrecy Act and FinCEN regulations. Every US fintech that holds customer funds must complete a documented KYC process (Customer Identification Programme) before activating the account.
Modern fintech KYC is automated: Plaid IDV, Sumsub, Persona, and similar providers handle the document capture, biometric liveness check, and database verification in one flow.
Kronos uses Plaid IDV for KYC: government-issued ID image capture, selfie + liveness check, and name/DOB/SSN verification. An explicit consent screen is required before any IDV session is created (MEGA_AUDIT P2).
US BSA regulations require it. Your SSN is sent directly to Plaid for verification and is not stored in cleartext in Kronos databases.