Registration process for FPIs investing only in G-Secs to get easier

Move will do away with need to furnish specific data sought earlier

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) may soon ease the registration process for foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) planning to invest only in Indian government bonds or G-Secs, an official said on Friday.

 

The changes, which will be announced soon, will reduce the need to furnish certain data that was earlier required in the usual FPI registration process.

 

“As far as FPIs in government debt is concerned, we will not have any specific Sebi-oriented requirement for data. Whatever is required by the Reserve Bank of India for know your customer (KYC) process or by the Central Board of Direct Taxes for PAN is all that will be needed. Details such as investor groups that are relevant for equity markets will not be sought, as long as the FPIs’ investments are limited to GOI bonds alone,” said Ananth Narayan, whole-time member, Sebi.

 

The markets regulator is expected to announce the changes within a couple of months.

 

However, the facility will only be for FPIs that will solely invest in G-Sec bonds. For other equity holdings, they will have to register separately through the usual process, the official said on the sidelines of Samvad, a symposium organised by Sebi, NISM, and NSE. 

 

Speaking at the event, the official said Sebi was keeping track of the time taken for FPIs to complete the registration process.

 

“The number of fresh applications for FPIs is going up. We are getting actionable data on where the bottlenecks are. The actual time being taken to register is coming down. There has been a reduction in the number of fields they have to input to set up multiple investment manager structure… it has come down by 45 per cent. We have not let our eyes off the balls,” said the Sebi official.

 

According to data from the National Securities Depository Limited (NSDL), there are nearly 12,000 registered FPIs in India. Net overall investments by FPIs in 2024 stood at around Rs 1.66 trillion, though January 2025 so far has seen an outflow of over Rs 36,500 crore.

 

The initiative for easing the process comes at a time when Indian bonds are being included in global indices, helping draw new investors.

 

In November, Sebi had announced a simplified FPI registration process through an abridged version of application form, in which certain fields will be auto-populated for several categories.

 

The simpler form was aimed to ease the burden on custodians and applicants and facilitate faster processing.

 

FPIs are given an option to choose between the current process and the abridged version of the common application form. In this version, the entity applying will only have to fill the fields relevant to them.

 

Last year, Sebi also set up an outreach cell for FPIs to directly engage with for any support in accessing the Indian market.