The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) issued a circular on Wednesday (November 4, 2026) — reference HO/38/30/12(3)2026-MIRSD-POD2/I/25175/2026 — reviewing the Know Your Client (KYC) process for individual Persons Resident Outside India (PROI) clients, the regulator said. An individual PROI client means a Non-Resident Indian (NRI), an Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) or a foreign national. Until now, SEBI's KYC Master Circular of October 12, 2023 required an intermediary to ensure that during digital KYC the physical location of the client is in India — a rule that in effect stopped a client who was outside India at the time of onboarding from completing KYC digitally.

Source: SEBI circular via TaxGuru

That location rule is now relaxed for a PROI client located in a Financial Action Task Force (FATF)-compliant country: the intermediary may accept digital submission of KYC information and supporting documents from such a client, SEBI said. The same process will also apply to re-KYC of a client in a FATF-compliant country. For clients residing in FATF non-compliant countries, the existing KYC process continues to apply, and KYC completed before the new circular takes effect stays governed by the existing provisions.

Source: SEBI circular via TaxGuru

December 3, 2026Date the revised PROI KYC provisions take effect — 30 days after the November 4 circular
3 working daysTime within which an intermediary must give a completed client's KYC information to the KRA
2023Year of the KYC Master Circular whose in-India location rule is being relaxed
2Registries an intermediary can draw records from — KRAs and the Central KYC Records Registry (CKYCRR)

KYC records become portable

KYC Registration Agencies (KRAs) will tag individual attributes in a KYC record as 'validated' when they have been verified against an official or source database, and all KYC records will be portable — they can be shared with another intermediary irrespective of whether every attribute has been validated or not, SEBI said. An intermediary may rely on KYC done by another SEBI-registered intermediary, using the record obtained from a KRA, or on KYC done by an entity regulated by another financial sector regulator, using the record obtained from the Central KYC Records Registry (CKYCRR). The intermediary, however, keeps ultimate responsibility for the KYC of its clients, including enhanced due diligence appropriate to each client's risk profile.

Source: SEBI circular via TaxGuru

What the client still has to provide

The relaxation removes the travel requirement, not the identity checks. The intermediary must collect the client's PAN and verify it against the Income Tax database without insisting on the original PAN or a copy; collect a copy of the passport and, where applicable, the OCI card; and treat the client's current address as an overseas address for proof of address, SEBI said. The KYC form may come in physically or digitally under electronic signature, and a specimen signature submitted digitally must be matched by a wet signature made before the intermediary during video verification. Where physical in-person verification is not feasible, Video In Person Verification (VIPV) may be used — with the client's consent recorded, geo-tagging and live GPS coordinates, checks against spoofed IP addresses, VPNs and proxies, face-liveness detection, end-to-end encryption, an authorised official of the intermediary present throughout, and the process subject to concurrent audit. On completion, the intermediary must provide the KYC information to the KRA within three working days.

Source: SEBI circular via TaxGuru

Nation Press reported that the change is expected to streamline onboarding and encourage greater participation by overseas investors in Indian financial markets, with intermediaries now required to have systems in place when the framework formally takes effect on December 3, 2026. LiveLawBiz, reporting the same circular, noted that KRAs have been directed to mark individual details in KYC records as 'validated' when verified through official databases. For a foreign national who seeks registration as a Foreign Portfolio Investor (FPI), SEBI added, the provisions of its FPI Master Circular of May 30, 2024 will continue to apply.

Source: Nation Press

For Punjabi and other Indian families settled in Canada, the United States, Britain and other FATF-compliant jurisdictions, the practical change is direct: from December 3, an NRI or OCI opening or updating an account with a SEBI-registered broker, fund house or other intermediary will no longer have to plan the KYC step around a trip to India — provided their intermediary has implemented the new digital process and they complete the video verification and document steps it requires.

Source: LiveLawBiz