Mumbai, Jan 16 || The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Thursday announced the issuing of revised Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) regulations to permit more liberal use of INR accounts held by NRIs to make payments, in order to promote cross border transactions in the Indian rupee and national currencies of trading partner countries.
According to new regulations, overseas branches of Authorised Dealer banks will be able to open INR accounts for a person resident outside India for settlement of all permissible current account and capital account transactions with a person resident in India.
“Persons resident outside India will also be able to settle bona fide transactions with other persons resident outside India using the balances in their repatriable INR accounts such as Special Non-resident Rupee account and SRVA,” according to the statement.
The new rules further allow persons resident outside India to be able to use their balances held in repatriable INR accounts for foreign investment, including FDI, in non-debt instruments.
Besides, Indian exporters will be able to open accounts in any foreign currency overseas for settlement of trade transactions, including receiving export proceeds and using these proceeds to pay for imports.
The revised regulations and directions to effect these changes have been issued, the RBI statement said.