Hi all,
At Dhan, we’ve always believed in building our business from a long term perspective and doing all things right for our customers.
All our decisions are influenced by this - even before Dhan opened its product / platform for public access, we had announced our User First Approach & Policy (Building Dhan as Investor First Platform | Dhan) and have stood by it through our journey so far.
Doing the right thing for our customers, at times, has meant letting go of some revenues - our zero account opening fees and zero annual maintenance fees are just a part of that philosophy. This was done because we strongly believe that our customers should only pay after they have experienced the product and continue to experience it month after month and build it better - together.
Today, in addition to our User First Policy - we are implementing a newer policy on how we manage User Data and retain it at Dhan. Unlike other stock brokers, we do not charge any upfront account opening fees or demat fees or platform / maintenance fees.
Since our onboarding process is completely free, we understand not everyone may complete the onboarding process and/or start using Dhan; they may change their mind and come back on a later date on Dhan.
We respect this; though users may not think of this actively, but when you drop-off from your onboarding journey at Dhan - at times you leave a lot of personal data & information with us. Protecting your data and privacy is of utmost importance to us - this is why we’ve decided to remove / purge all user information after 100 days if they do not complete the onboarding process by then.
Now that there are multiple brokers providing online account opening journeys, users may not complete the KYC journey in all of them - even if they attempt to start it. We’ve even had some of our users reach out to us to delete their data from our systems. While SEBI / exchanges allows brokers to store documents for a period no less than eight years, we believe this applies to fully onboarded customers that are registered on exchanges.
We want to ensure we comply with all regulatory requirements and at the same time also do enough to protect user’s data and information of users who drop off in our onboarding journey. Hence, going forward on Dhan, if you have started your onboarding journey with us (verified your mobile number) and left it before completion (did not eSign your documents), we will remove your personal information from our database completely.
Why do users not complete the account opening journey?
One of the most common reasons is - they forget; and the next one is that when they are about to eSign their documents, users realise that they do not have their Aadhaar details with them at that moment and they eventually miss completing it.
Why delete at 100 days?
Well, it is just a random number. Moreover, users who usually have high intent to complete the KYC process, generally do it within just a few days of starting it. Most of that is in 2-3 days at the max, but we have seen instances where users complete over a month or two. Hence for now, we have decided that we will delete personal information after 100 days. We may change this later based on user behaviour and observations from our own data.
Is there any detail that you retain?
Yes, we do retain your mobile number and email address. This is done to identify and minimize frauds. We also want to ensure that verified communication information like mobile number and email address is retained to ensure we warn users if it is attempted to link with other accounts. All other sensitive data, like your PAN Card, address, bank account details and photo is removed and not stored with us beyond 100 days.
What happens after 100 days?
If you come back to our platform post 100 days and enter the same mobile number that you had initially registered with us, we will direct you to the PAN stage, where you will be asked to input your PAN details and restart your onboarding journey. Simple!
Note:
- This policy only affects partially onboarded users. If you have already eSigned your documents, we will consider you as a fully onboarded customer, since we immediately start sending your details to exchanges and depositories.
- As we go live with this policy starting today, we will not be accepting any requests to delete the data before 100 days.
We hope to continue to abide by our policies of user transparency and privacy as we grow with our users.
For any feedback, kindly email us at feedback@dhan.co
-Anirudha
Product @ Dhan