The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has simplified the re-KYC process for Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) by scrapping the requirement of being physically present in India during digital verification. The move is aimed at making compliance easier and more accessible for millions of NRIs who maintain investment accounts back home.
Relaxation Follows Stakeholder Requests
According to a new circular issued by the regulator, SEBI decided to revise the existing framework after receiving suggestions from various stakeholders seeking greater flexibility for overseas investors. The regulator clarified that the relaxation applies only to re-KYC for existing clients, allowing NRIs to complete the process digitally from any country.
Re-KYC, or Re-Know Your Customer, is a periodic process undertaken by financial institutions and intermediaries to update or validate a client’s personal details. For NRIs, this requirement often posed logistical challenges, especially when mandated to be digitally verified only while physically located in India.
Key Conditions to Ensure Verification Integrity
While re-KYC can now be completed entirely from abroad, SEBI has retained strong safeguards to ensure the authenticity of the process. Digital KYC applications must continue to deploy security tools such as random prompts, geo-tagging, and time-stamping to confirm that the interaction is genuine.
SEBI further stated that the app must verify whether the user’s GPS coordinates match the country mentioned in their address proof. Any attempt to mask or spoof the IP location must be automatically blocked. However, SEBI reiterated that digital onboarding for new clients will still require the user to be located in India, making the relaxation applicable only to existing account holders.
