FDI Reporting on e-Biz Platform

[RBI Circular No. 77 dated 12^th February 2015]

Sub: Foreign Direct Investment – Reporting under FDI Scheme on the e-Biz platform.

Attention of Authorised Dealers Category-I (AD Category - I) banks is invited to the provisions of the Foreign Exchange Management (Transfer or Issue of Security by a Person Resident outside India) Regulations 2000, notified by the Reserve Bank vide Notification No. FEMA 20/2000-RB, dated 3rd May 2000, as amended from time to time. Attention of AD Category – I banks is also invited to A.P. (DIR Series) Circular No.102 dated February 11, 2014 and A.P. (DIR Series) Circular No.6 dated July 18, 2014.

2. With a view to promoting the ease of reporting of transactions under foreign direct investment, the Reserve Bank of India, under the aegis of the e-Biz project of the Government of India has enabled the filing of the following returns with the Reserve Bank of India viz.

· Advance Remittance Form (ARF) - used by the companies to report the foreign direct investment (FDI) inflow to RBI; and

· FCGPR Form - which a company submits to RBI for reporting the issue of eligible instruments to the overseas investor against the above mentioned FDI inflow.

3. The design of the reporting platform enables the customer to login into the e-Biz portal, download the reporting forms (ARF and FCGPR), complete and then upload the same onto the portal using their digitally signed certificates. The Authorised Dealer Banks (ADs) will be required to download the completed forms, verify the contents from the available documents, if necessary by calling for additional information from the customer and then upload the same for RBI to process and allot the Unique Identification Number (UIN). It has been decided that the ARF and FCGPR services of RBI will be operational on the e-Biz platform from February 19, 2015. The user manual for the two services is Annexed to this Circular.

4. It may be noted that for the present, the online reporting on the e-Biz platform is an additional facility to the Indian companies to undertake their ARF and FCGPR reporting and the manual system of reporting as prescribed in terms of A.P. (DIR Series) Circular No. 102 dated February 11, 2014 would continue till further notice.

5. The ADs will be required to access the e-Biz portal (which is hosted on the National Informatics Centre (NIC) servers) using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) Account obtained from NIC. The financial aspects for obtaining/using the VPN accounts is being finalised in consultation with Government of India, DIPP and NIC. The same will be informed in due course.

6. AD Category-I banks may bring the contents of this circular to the notice of their customers / constituents concerned. They are advised to extend due cooperation/assistance to their constituents for uploading the abovementioned forms on the e-Biz platform.

7. The directions contained in this circular have been issued under sections 10(4) and 11(1) of the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), 1999 (42 of 1999) and are without prejudice to permissions / approvals, if any, required under any other law.