The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) on August 14, 2026, issued Consultation Paper on Review of Know Your Client process for individual Persons Resident outside India.
SEBI has issued a consultation paper reviewing the KYC on-boarding process for individual Persons Resident Outside India (PROI) — comprising NRIs, OCIs, and foreign nationals — with the objective of enabling seamless digital on-boarding in the securities market. Currently, non-resident clients are required to be physically present in India at the time of digital on-boarding, a requirement SEBI has been receiving multiple stakeholder representations to relax, especially given recent regulatory changes such as the Union Budget FY2026-27 announcement permitting individual PROI investment in listed Indian equities and the Ministry of Finance's June 12, 2026 amendment allowing Foreign Nationals to invest without the FPI route.
The core public comment sought is whether SEBI should allow intermediaries to digitally on-board individual PROI clients without requiring physical presence in India, provided the client is located in a FATF-compliant country. Related sub-proposals include: accepting KYC forms/OVDs digitally under electronic signature; collecting cropped specimen signature images with wet-signature verification during VIPV; relaxing mobile number verification requirements; mandating email ID collection; expanding the list of officials authorized to certify OVDs to include overseas bank branch officials with Indian bank relationships; permitting self-declared current address where OVD is source-verifiable; additional safeguards for VIPV given the relaxed physical-presence requirement; and whether KRAs may share unvalidated/non-source-verified KYC records with intermediaries.
A draft circular titled "Review of KYC process for individual Persons Resident Outside India" is enclosed as Annex-A. Comments/suggestions must be submitted latest by September 04, 2026 via the SEBI public comments portal (link provided), and any technical issues in submission may be reported to [email protected], [email protected], and [email protected] with the subject line "Public comments on Review of KYC process for Persons Resident Outside India.
