Reserve Bank of India (RBI) vide its Circular No. 77 dated February 12, 2015 initiated online filing of (i) Advance Remittance Form (ARF) used by the companies to report the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) inflows to RBI and (ii) Foreign Currency Gross Provisional Return (FCGPR) Form which a company requires to submit to RBI for reporting the issue of eligible instruments to the overseas investor against any FDI inflow, on e-Biz portal (https://www.ebiz.gov.in/) of Government of India. Thereafter, RBI vide its Circular No. 9 dated August 21, 2015 also permitted online filing of Foreign Currency Transfer of Shares (FCTRS) Form which a company requires to submit to RBI for reporting the transfer of securities between resident and person outside India.
Hence, the users had the option to file ARF, FCGPR and FCTRS through both, online as well as manual mode. However, RBI vide its Circular No. 40 dated February 01, 2016 has mandated online filing of the said forms on e-Biz platform and discontinuation of the manual filing thereof, with effect from February 08, 2016.
The user needs to login on the e-Biz portal, download the relevant form, complete and then upload the same onto the e-Biz portal using digital signature certificates. The concerned authorised dealer banks will continue to verify the contents of the uploaded documents and if necessary, may call for additional information from the user and then the concerned authorised dealer bank uploads the same with the RBI to process and allot the unique identification number.
This green initiative of Government of India is expected to ease the reporting of the FDI transactions, speedy closure of the matters and lessen the paperwork for the Authorised Dealer Banks as well as the parties to the transaction.
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