the KYB questionnaire from the bank is different this year than last year how can that be

Questionnaires follow what the bank needs to know, not what was convenient last year

The bank changes the questionnaire because its own obligations change, not because it arbitrarily revises a format. KYB, "Know Your Business", is not a fixed checklist but an ongoing obligation for the bank to know who its business customer is and whether the risk of, for example, money laundering has changed. New owners, a new sector classification, an adjusted supervisory interpretation or simply a periodic reassessment: each of these can result in a different set of questions than last year. There is no central standard that prescribes the same questionnaire for all banks, so each bank translates its own risk model into its own questions, and that model is adjusted annually.

What usually remains stable is the core: who is the enterprise, who has control, and where does the money come from. Those basic data — the statutory name, the registration number and the registered address — come back with virtually every bank, even if the question is formulated differently every year. What varies is often the additional layer: extra questions about UBO structures following a merger, about PEP status, or about the nature of transactions in a sector that has just come under increased scrutiny. This explains why two years in a row the same enterprise still receives a different number of questions, without anything going wrong.

No statutory fixed form, but a statutory basis

There is no article that prescribes the exact questionnaire of a KYB list; banks are free in their design as long as they can substantiate their client due diligence. What the bank does need as standard is established in the Business Register: name, legal form, registered address and registration number are the basic data of every enterprise there, regulated in the Trade Register Act 2007. Because that basis does not change, it is logical that precisely that part of the list remains most recognizable, while the risk-oriented questions — which come not from a law but from the bank's internal policy — can shift every year.