KYA (Know Your Agent)
Know Your Agent (KYA) is a governance framework for AI agents in regulated industries, modeled on the financial sector's Know Your Customer (KYC) requirements. It defines four pillars: agent identity and registration, authority and permission control, behavior monitoring, and ecosystem governance.
Why It Matters
Financial regulators (FCA, MAS, BaFin) are beginning to ask how organizations govern AI agents that access financial systems. KYA maps compliance obligations organizations already understand to the agent context.
The four pillars translate directly to operational requirements: registered agents, policy-evaluated actions, anomaly detection, and full-chain visibility over agent-to-tool and agent-to-agent interactions.
KYA is not a standard yet. It is a proposed framework from MetaComp (April 2026), aligned with Singapore's IMDA guidance. Its value is as a conversation starter for regulated organizations that need structured thinking before formal regulations arrive.