The Securities and Exchange Board of India Chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey said on Wednesday that the regulator would issue a paper reviewing compliance norms for foreign portfolio investor onboarding. The chairman said SEBI has made progress in easing timelines for FPI onboarding but acknowledged that compliance requirements in India are more onerous than those in other regions.
The regulator is continuously engaging with FPIs to gather feedback and identify areas of difficulty, the chairman said. Separately, the SEBI chairman said the regulator is not actively considering a review of norms governing self-listing by stock exchanges.
SEBI has taken steps in recent months to ease certain requirements for foreign investors. In September, the regulator extended an exemption from furnishing investor-group details to FPIs investing exclusively in government securities, irrespective of the investment route used.
The change followed the Reserve Bank of India's withdrawal of concentration limits for FPIs investing in government securities through the General Route. The SEBI Board also approved wider participation by FPIs in exchange-traded commodity derivatives, including non-agricultural index derivatives and non-cash-settled non-agricultural commodity derivatives, subject to specified conditions.
Meanwhile, foreign portfolio investors have also been net sellers of Indian equities in October. According to data cited in a PTI report dated October 25, FPIs withdrew ₹48,056 crore from equities during the month up to that point, taking their cumulative outflows in 2026 to ₹3.08 lakh crore.