Under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) and SEBI KYC guidelines, which of the following documents is classified as an Officially Valid Document (OVD) for Proof of Identity and Address?

[ A ]Visiting card of the employer.

[ B ]Passport, Driving License, Proof of possession of Aadhaar number, or Voter Identity Card issued by Election Commission of India.[ CORRECT ]

[ C ]Electricity bill older than 12 months.

[ D ]Bank passbook statement without photograph or signature.

Takeaway

Officially Valid Documents under PMLA/SEBI KYC norms include Passport, Driving License, proof of Aadhaar possession, and the Voter ID card issued by the Election Commission — statutory government-issued identity proofs.

Derivation

The Prevention of Money Laundering (Maintenance of Records) Rules define OVDs as a closed, specific list of government-issued documents that reliably establish both identity and address, because KYC exists to prevent anonymous or fraudulently-identified accounts from being used for money laundering. Passport, Driving License, Aadhaar, Voter ID, and (with conditions) NREGA job card and letters issued by the National Population Register make this list; informal or private-sector documents do not qualify no matter how commonly used, because they lack the statutory verification chain the PML Rules require. This tests whether candidates can distinguish the exhaustive legal OVD list from documents that are merely commonly accepted as informal ID in daily life.

Why the others fail

A — Visiting card of the employer.

A visiting card is an informal business courtesy item issued by an employer with no statutory verification behind it — it carries zero legal standing as identity or address proof.

C — Electricity bill older than 12 months.

Utility bills are accepted as OVDs only if reasonably recent (typically within about 2 months); a bill older than 12 months falls outside the validity window prescribed under KYC norms.

D — Bank passbook statement without photograph or signature.

A bank passbook lacking photograph or signature is a secondary financial record, not one of the statutorily specified primary government-issued OVDs under the PML Rules.