Periodic KYC Review (KYC Refresh)

Customers change addresses, owners, jobs and business lines, and sanctions or PEP status can alter over time. A refresh brings the file back in line with reality. Firms commonly review high-risk customers every year, medium-risk every few years and low-risk ones less often, though the cycle is set by policy and local rules. The review re-screens names, compares real activity with the expected profile, collects expired documents and decides whether the risk rating should move. Event-triggered reviews happen between cycles when something notable occurs. KYC remediation is a related but different job: a large one-off clean-up of files found to be incomplete or out of date, often after a supervisory finding or a system migration. Supervisors often ask for the count of overdue reviews by risk band, and a growing high-risk backlog draws questions.

At the yearly review of a trading company rated high risk, an analyst finds that the registry now shows a new majority shareholder, not named on the file, and that account turnover has tripled. The analyst requests ownership documents and a source of funds explanation, and moves the file to enhanced due diligence.