The Securities and Exchange Board of India has revised its Foreign Portfolio Investor (FPI) Master Circular to implement the Single Window Automatic and Generalised Access for Trusted Foreign Investors (SWAGAT-FI) framework for FPIs and Foreign Venture Capital Investors (FVCIs), simplifying onboarding and ongoing compliance and requiring depositories to offer a unified accounting and investing experience for SWAGAT-FIs. SWAGAT-FI eligibility is limited to specified trusted investor types, including government or government-related investors, appropriately regulated retail mutual funds or unit trusts meeting “blind pool” and manager-independence conditions, appropriately regulated insurance companies investing own funds without segregated portfolios, and appropriately regulated pension funds. For public retail funds, the framework also requires establishment in an “identified jurisdiction” and regulation by an “identified statutory authority”, with the list to be set out in a Standard Operating Procedure developed by the Custodians and Designated Depository Participants Standards Setting Forum in consultation with SEBI; existing FPIs that meet the criteria can convert by applying to their Designated Depository Participant. The circular also exempts SWAGAT-FI FPIs from a specified provision in Part A Para 1(b) of the Master Circular, subject to resident Indian individual contributions being routed through the Reserve Bank of India’s Liberalised Remittance Scheme and invested in global funds with less than 50% Indian exposure; it extends the registration continuation block to 10 years for SWAGAT-FIs and sets a 10-year periodicity for custodian KYC reviews. Depositories, custodians and Designated Depository Participants are instructed to update systems for the changes, which take effect from June 1, 2026.

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