Sebi seeks views on simplifying registration process for certain FPIs, floats consultation paper

The draft circular seeks to review the application and signing of Common Application Form (CAF) for certain FPIs. Every FPI applicant is required to submit a duly filled and signed CAF and ‘Annexure to CAF’ supported by required documents for registration.

The industry is demanding an abridged version of CAF for certain categories of FPIs, which should have only those fields which are unique to the these applicants “in order to save significant time and efforts in terms of reviewing the application and signing reduced number of pages”, according to a Sebi consultation paper released on Tuesday.

The remaining fields shall either be auto populated from the information available in the depository system or shall be disabled, as applicable.

“It is observed that, in case of certain categories of FPI applicants, some of the relevant information is already captured in Depositories’ CAF module, which can be leveraged without seeking the same from said applicants. Accordingly, in order to save significant time and efforts for aforementioned FPI applicants, in terms of reviewing the application and signing the CAF, it is proposed to seek only such information that is unique to the aforesaid applicants,” the consultation paper said.

Sebi has identified four categories of FPI for whom the provision of abridged version of CAF could be facilitated:i) multiple funds of investing/non-investing Investment Manager (IM) wherein IM or one its funds is already registered as FPIii) sub-funds of a master fund wherein the master fund/one of the sub-fund is already registered as FPI

iii) sub-funds of a fund with separate classes of shares or equivalent structure with segregated portfolio wherein such fund/one of its sub fund is already registered as FPI and

iv) schemes of insurance companies wherein the parent entity/one of the schemes of Insurance company is already registered as FPI

The industry is of the view that the information regarding the IM and others is already captured in depositories’ CAF module. Moreover, there are certain fields exclusive to individual FPI applicants and hence will not be for the applicants belonging to the above categories, the consultation paper said.

The proposal, if accepted by Sebi after receiving public feedback, could result in ease of onboarding for these FPIs and reduce duplication of available information.

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