Allowing NRIs to open demat accounts online is the low-hanging fruit to attract money to India. The process today is physical and cumbersome.

With Indian markets doing well, there’s a great interest to invest here, but the tough onboard process leads to massive dropoffs.

Since NRIs send and receive funds from bank accounts with KYC, we can make onboarding fully digital and make it as easy as it is for a resident Indian to open a trading account.

Online onboarding is the main reason for increased retail participation in India.

There are 2 parts to the onboarding: KYC & authorization (sign). An NRI with an NRE/NRO bank account will already have the updated KYC, accessible to other financial intermediaries through CKYC. NRIs may not have an Aadhaar or one linked to an Indian mobile number to e-sign.

Now that we are allowing UPI for NRIs mapped to their international numbers, what if we use that to authorize (e-sign) and open a trading & demat account online? @FinMinIndia

NRIs are among the wealthiest outside India. We need to make it easy for them to invest back home.

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