What is KYC in the Pi Network, what it means, why it’s needed and what you need to complete it.
Now, the reason why I want to talk about this is because since I joined the Pi Network, initially, roughly two months ago in August, I’ve seen a lot of people asking what is KYC and so on.
What is KYC
Let’s start with what is KYC?
KYC stands for know your customer, and it’s a requirement in most countries when it comes to financial instruments. So for example, when you want to go and open a bank account, the bank has to do a KYC process, which means they have to verify your identity and so on. And this applies to trading platforms, bank accounts, and a lot of other things in your daily life.
So it’s just an acronym for know your customer. Now, how does KYC work within the PI network. PI itself doesn’t do the KYC process, but they currently rely on a third-party app called YOTI. So instead of PI, asking you to send them your passport or another ID and so on. They basically use third party verification.
What you need to do
So what you will need to do, you will need to download the YOTI app and there, follow the process to provide your identity.
Usually, this will mean that you need to upload a passport. Now don’t worry. If you don’t have a passport, you may also be able to get YOTI verified with a national ID. But even if that doesn’t work, don’t worry because along the way, the PI developers will also add possibilities for you to verify your identity, so to complete your KYC process with other options other than YOTI.
Now once you’ve set up your YOTI app, you cannot initiate the KYC process by yourself. But currently, PI has a couple of verification slots and randomly assigned them to you. So eventually you will see a popup in your Pi app that tells you that you are now chosen and that you can complete the process. And then you just have to follow along. If you’re not sure if you’ve already completed the KYC process or not. All you have to do is in your Pi app in the top left, go to the menu.
How to check your KYC
From the menu, go to profile and in your profile, you will then see the checkboxes for phone verification, Facebook verification, and KYC identity verification. If it looks like on my phone here where you have three green checkboxes, you are fully verified.
If you sign up with Facebook, you will not have the option to verify your phone number. Only in my case because I signed up with the phone number first, then linked the Facebook account. I was able to verify both, but it’s not needed. You only need to verify one. So either your phone number or your Facebook account, and if you signed up for Facebook, you’re automatically verified for Facebook. And the green check mark when it comes to the identity, verification will only be there once you completed it.
Now again, you cannot start the verification manually. All you can do right now is download the YOTI app. And once PI asks you to verify your identity, you will basically be able to complete the process in less than 30 seconds. So to sum things up the KYC process within the PI network just stands for know your customer. And it’s a way to comply with legal regulations to actually verify the identity of a customer or a user. Currently, you can only use the YOTI app to verify your identity. And only once you have been asked within the PI application to proceed with the KYC process. You cannot trigger the process on your own. You’ll have to wait for it to show up.
And if you cannot verify your identity with YOTI, all you have to do is wait because the PI developers will eventually introduce alternate if methods to complete that process.
