Checking a Trainee's KYC Notice Before It Goes on the Board
A trainee has drafted the notice below for the branch display board, announcing the annual KYC updation drive. The branch head asks you to check it before it is printed, because last year a badly worded notice from the same branch produced a written complaint to the Regional Office. Draft: "It is hereby informed to all our valued customer that as per RBI guidelines, customers are requiring to update their KYC details before 31 March. Those who is not complied will be constrained to face restriction on their account. The branch is open on all working days between 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Kindly bring original documents and one photocopy of each. For more informations, contact the help desk. We regret the inconvenience caused and solicit your co-operation in this matter. The principle reason for this exercise is to prevent fraud and to protect your own money."
1. Identify the grammatical and lexical errors in the draft and give the corrected form of each.
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| # | Faulty wording | Problem | Correction |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "It is hereby informed to all our valued customer" | wrong voice/preposition; singular noun after "all" | "All our valued customers are hereby informed that…" |
| 2 | "customers are requiring to update" | progressive tense is not used for obligation | "customers are required to update" |
| 3 | "Those who is not complied" | subject-verb agreement plus wrong form of the verb | "Those who have not complied" |
| 4 | "will be constrained to face restriction" | "constrained" means forced or restricted in movement; wordy and unclear | "may face restrictions on their account" |
| 5 | "between 10 a.m. to 4 p.m." | "between" pairs with "and", not "to" | "from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m." (or "between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.") |
| 6 | "more informations" | "information" is uncountable | "for more information" |
| 7 | "The principle reason" | "principle" is a rule; the adjective needed is "principal" | "The principal reason" |
Answer as you would give it to the branch head: the notice has errors 1–7 above; all must be fixed before printing, since 2, 3 and 6 are the kind of error an inspecting officer reads as carelessness across the branch, not just in one notice.
2. Rewrite the opening two sentences as plain, courteous English in not more than 40 words, keeping both the deadline and the consequence.
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Model rewrite (33 words):
"All customers are requested to update their KYC details by 31 March, as required by RBI guidelines. Accounts not updated by that date may face restrictions on operations. We apologise for the inconvenience."
Why each change was made:
- Active, direct opening ("are requested") instead of the impersonal "It is hereby informed to".
- "by 31 March", not "before 31 March" - "before" makes the dead line ambiguous by a day, and the original said "before" while the intent is "on or before".
- "may face restrictions" states the consequence factually without threatening; "will be constrained to face restriction" reads as a penalty being imposed on the customer.
- Kept inside 40 words with the deadline and the consequence both intact, which is the test of a usable rewrite.
A rewrite that drops the deadline or the consequence has failed the task even if it is grammatically perfect.
3. The branch head says the phrase "will be constrained to face restriction on their account" sounds firm and wants to keep it. Advise him, giving the practical risk of keeping it.
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Advise against keeping it, on three grounds.
- It is unclear English. "Constrained to face restriction" uses two near-synonyms stacked together and does not say what will actually happen - partial freeze, debit freeze, or full closure. A customer cannot act on it, so the notice fails its only purpose.
- It reads as a threat rather than information. Customer-facing notices are read by the Ombudsman's office during complaint handling. A threatening tone in a routine KYC notice is avoidable reputational and regulatory cost, as last year's Regional Office complaint already demonstrated.
- Firmness comes from precision, not from adjectives. A clear statement of what will be restricted and from which date is firmer than vague language, because it is enforceable and testable.
Suggested replacement: "Accounts not updated by 31 March may face restrictions on debit operations until the KYC is completed."
Practical step: get the corrected wording approved in writing by the branch head before printing, and keep the approved draft on file - if a complaint comes later, the branch can show exactly what was displayed and who cleared it.