The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Monday the 1st February, 2016 issued Circular , RBI/2015-16/303 A.P. (DIR Series) Circular No. 40 to Authorised Dealers Category-I (AD Category – I) banks relating to mandatorily filing of following forms, only through online mode on e-Biz portal with effect from 8th February, 2016 –

• Advanced Remittance Form (ARF), which is used by the companies to report the FDI inflows to RBI;

• Foreign Collaboration General Permission Route(FC-GPR) Form which a company submits to RBI for reporting the issue of eligible instruments to the overseas investor against the above mentioned FDI inflow; and

• Foreign Collaboration Transfer of Shares (FC-TRS) Form which is submitted to RBI for transfer of securities between resident and person outside India.

At present, the facility for online filing of ARF, FC-GPR and FC-TRS forms related to Foreign Direct Investment related transactions on Government’s e-Biz portal is available in addition to the option of physical filing of these forms.

While launching the FC-TRS module on e-Biz portal on 21st August, 2015, banks were informed by RBI’s Circular RBI/2015-16/157 A.P. (DIR Series) Circular No. 9, that the facility of physical filing would continue till further notice. The decision to completely switch over to online filing of forms has been taken after assessing the readiness of AD Category – I banks to file these forms online.

The said circular can be accessed at the link given below:

RBI_2015-16_157_FDI_Circular No. 9_Reporting under the FDI Scheme on the e-Biz-platform_21.08.15

RBI_2015-16_303_Circular No. 40_Mandatory filing of Form ARF, FCGPR & FCTRS on e-biz_1.02.16