In order to promote the ease of reporting of FDI transactions, the Reserve Bank of India (“RBI”) has issued a circular making it mandatory for online filing of the following forms on the e-Biz Portal :
(i) Advance Remittance Form (“ARF”) which is used by companies to report FDI inflows to the RBI;
(ii) Form FC-GPR which a company submits to the RBI for reporting the issue of eligible instruments to an overseas investor against the above mentioned FDI inflow; and
(iii) Form FC-TRS which is submitted to the RBI for transfer of securities between a person resident in India and a person resident outside India.
In view of the above, physical filing of forms ARF, FC-GPR and FC-TRS will be discontinued and forms submitted in online mode only through e-Biz Portal will be accepted w.e.f. 8 February 2016.
The circular can be accessed on the website of RBI, at the following link:
https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/NotificationUser.aspx?Id=10248&Mode=0