Know Your Client (KYC) and Know Your Product (KYP)
What you'll be able to do
Know the client and know the product — suitability lives where the two meet, and KYC must stay current.
- KYC = the client facts behind a recommendation; KYP = understanding the products.
- Suitability lives where KYC and KYP meet.
- KYC is a continuing duty — keep it current as life changes.
Two obligations sit under every recommendation. Know Your Client (KYC) means gathering and keeping current the facts that make a recommendation appropriate: the client's financial situation, investment knowledge, objectives, time horizon, and risk profile. Know Your Product (KYP) means understanding the products you recommend — their structure, risks, costs, and who they're for — well enough to compare them.
You can't bridge the two without both. KYC without KYP means you understand the client but might hand them the wrong tool; KYP without KYC means you know the products but not whether they fit this person. Suitability lives at the intersection, and Canadian regulators treat collecting and maintaining KYC as a continuing duty, not a one-time form.
Practically, KYC is a living record. It must be updated when the client's circumstances change — a new job, a baby, a divorce, retirement — because a recommendation that was suitable two years ago may not be today. Treat the KYC update as part of every meaningful review.
Key points
- KYC = the client facts behind a recommendation; KYP = understanding the products.
- Suitability lives where KYC and KYP meet.
- KYC is a continuing duty — keep it current as life changes.
- Update KYC at reviews and life events, not just at onboarding.
Examples
A client's KYC still says 'aggressive, 25-year horizon' three years after they retired and started drawing income. Acting on the stale profile risks an unsuitable, too-risky recommendation.
Pitfalls
- Treating KYC as a one-time onboarding form instead of a living record.
- Recommending a product you don't actually understand (a KYP failure).
Ask your sales coach
In a real Adept rollout this routes to your firm's compliance-approved Claude project; in the demo it opens a fresh Claude chat. Never share real client details.