Mumbai (Maharashtra) [India], August 14 : The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has proposed allowing Non-Resident Indians (NRIs), Overseas Citizens of India (OCIs) and foreign nationals living abroad to complete their KYC digitally without being physically present in India, as the regulator looks to make it easier for overseas individuals to invest in the Indian securities market.
The relaxation would be available to individual Persons Resident Outside India (PROIs) located in countries compliant with the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), according to a consultation paper released by SEBI. Existing KYC requirements would continue to apply to clients in FATF non-compliant countries.
Currently, digital onboarding of such investors is possible only when they are physically present in India. SEBI said the requirement to capture the latitude and longitude of a client within India prevents intermediaries from offering complete digital onboarding to individuals located overseas.
"To facilitate digital on-boarding process for clients outside India, the requirement of physical location in India during 'digital KYC' may be relaxed for clients from Financial Action Task Force (FATF) compliant countries," SEBI said in the consultation paper.
The regulator has also proposed making KYC records portable across securities market intermediaries, potentially allowing an overseas investor to use an existing KYC instead of repeating the entire process while approaching another intermediary.
Under the proposal, the requirement for a KYC to be fully "validated" for portability could be relaxed. Information that has been verified against official or source databases would be appropriately flagged and shared with other intermediaries, which could carry out additional checks based on their risk assessment.
SEBI's press release described this as "One KYC for multiple intermediaries."
The regulator has further proposed allowing intermediaries to rely on KYC conducted by entities regulated by other financial sector regulators. However, the securities market intermediary would retain ultimate responsibility for the KYC and undertake additional checks depending on the client's risk profile.
Other proposals include permitting digital submission of KYC forms and officially valid documents using electronic or digital signatures, making email IDs mandatory while relaxing mobile-number verification where necessary, and expanding the list of officials authorised to certify documents to include officials of overseas banks having relationships with Indian banks.
For remote video verification, SEBI has proposed safeguards including liveliness checks, live capture of a client's location to match the country mentioned in the address proof, prevention of connections from spoofed IP addresses, concurrent audits and compliance with cybersecurity requirements.
Explaining the rationale, SEBI said persons resident outside India represent a "significant and growing pool of investment into India" and smoother onboarding would make investing easier for the Indian diaspora and help channel overseas savings into Indian capital markets.
SEBI has sought public comments on the proposals until September 4, 2026.