Compounding fees to be refunded to applicant's a/c via NEFT

To expedite refunds of compounding fees in case of voluntarily admission of contravention under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), the Reserve Bank of India on Monday said such credits will be deposited to the applicant's account through NEFT (National Electronic Funds Transfer). Compounding means voluntarily admitting the contravention, pleading guilty and seeking redressal.

The directive came as the RBI had received a number of applications for compounding of contraventions of FEMA which were sent without proper approvals from the authorities concerned.

If an application has to be returned for this or any other reason, the application fees is also returned, it said.

RBI said the applicants should furnish their mandate and details of their bank accounts in a prescribed format along with the application.