Encouraging investment

New rules aim to improve NRI participation

In its latest board meeting, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) took steps to improve non-resident Indian (NRI) and overseas citizen of India (OCI) access to Indian equity assets via the foreign portfolio investment (FPI) route. The regulator has hiked the limit of NRI/OCI commitments to the FPI corpus to 100 per cent, provided know-your-customer (KYC) norms are fulfilled and the investments come through the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC). This should enable greater NRI participation in Indian equity while offering transparency. Until now, NRIs could own an aggregate 50 per cent of the corpus of an FPI.