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Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey said the regulator is aiming to reduce the time taken for Foreign Portfolio Investor (FPI) registrations from the current average of 30 days to less than a week through a digital push, while balancing speed with due diligence.
Speaking to ANI, Pandey said that, on average, it takes 30 days, and the regulator is working towards a target of reducing it to five days. "We haven't come down to five days yet. That's our goal. It's a tough goal," Pandey noted. He pointed out that while SEBI's internal processing averages around 30 days, the actual experience of FPIs can be longer due to back-and-forth communication between investors and custodians. "If you were to ask an FPI, they would probably say that they have been at it for two or three months. But we don't know, there's something in between," he said, explaining that applications are routed through custodians and not submitted directly to the regulator. Pandey said that to compress timelines without compromising regulatory checks, SEBI has introduced structural changes. "What we have done is, first, we have created a market access portal where we have said that if you want to come as a portfolio investor, this is what you need to do," he said. He added that regulatory requirements from SEBI, RBI, income tax authorities, and KYC processes have been consolidated "in one place so that people know exactly -- one, two, three -- what documents are needed, what needs to be done, and what the process is." He further said that SEBI is moving towards a fully digitised workflow. "We want to introduce India Digital Signature for FPIs so that they are able to very quickly submit their documents using digital signatures," he said, noting that the earlier practice of wet signatures, cyclostyling, apostilling, and physically sending documents to the regulator consumed significant time. "Unless we shift to a digital process, we won't be able to compress time," he added. Pandey said that without adding any additional documentation burden, the push for digital signatures and portal-based submissions will make it much easier for SEBI to process applications and grant registrations quickly. However, SEBI Chairman clarified that faster approvals would not come at the cost of regulatory rigour. "If we don't have adequate regulation, the market won't develop because there won't be trust. On the other hand, if we over-regulate, we would be throttling innovation," he said. Describing the FPI registration reform as part of a broader technology-driven shift, Pandey said SEBI is upgrading processes across departments. The regulator now aims to translate that reform push into tangible efficiency gains, with the sub-five-day FPI registration target firmly in sight. (ANI)
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