Only 5 MFs allow NRIs residing in US and Canada to execute online transaction without any limits

One of our readers wrote to us with this query:

Are NRIs based out of US and Canada allowed to invest in Indian mutual funds. If yes, which are the fund houses, which facilitate such a transaction and what is the process to onboard NRIs based out of these two countries?

Regards,

Anam

Dear Anam,

Thanks for writing to us.

Yes, NRIs based out of US and Canada can invest in Indian mutual funds. However, AMCs do not have a uniform policy to deal with US and Canadian clients.

Currently, close to 14 fund houses receive investment from investors based out of these two countries and another five AMCs receive investment only from US.

Broadly, there are two categories of fund houses here - where investors are not required to physically present in India and vice versa.

Here is the list of fund houses where investors are not required to be physically present in India:

• Aditya Birla Sun Life Mutual Fund
• Nippon India Mutual Fund
• Quant Mutual Fund
• Sundaram Mutual
• UTI Mutual Fund

Interestingly, these fund houses allow such NRIs to invest in their MF schemes without any restriction that too through online transaction.

Let us look at the fund houses which insist NRIs to be physically present in India:

• 360 One Mutual Fund
• Axis Mutual Fund
• DSP Mutual Fund (Only lumpsum)
• ITI Mutual Fund (Only lumpsum)
• Kotak Mutual Fund
• Navi Mutual Fund
• NJ India Mutual Fund
• PPFAS Mutual Fund
• SBI Mutual Fund
• Taurus Mutual Fund
• White Oak Capital Mutual Fund

Similarly, here is the list of fund houses, which receive money only from US investors:

• Bandhan Mutual Fund (Only US)
• Edelweiss Mutual Fund (Only US)
• HDFC Mutual Fund (Only US)
• ICICI Mutual Fund (Only US)
• Motilal Oswal Mutual Fund (Only US)

Please note that all these fund houses receive investment only through physical mode. Also, these fund houses insist NRIs to submit application form along with a declaration form indicating their residential status.

Coming to the second part of your query, NRIs residing in US and Canada will have to share Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) details and tax identification number (TIN) along with KYC details.

FATCA declaration form captures information like type of address (residence, business, registered office etc.), country of tax residence, tax identification number, Global Intermediary Identification Number (GIIN) and seek investors consent for sharing the information with relevant tax authorities.

For KYC, here is the list of valid KYC documents:

• PAN card
• Overseas address proof
• Passport
• Passport size photograph
• OCI Card (In case of foreign passport holder)

For transaction, an NRE (Non-Resident External) or NRO (Non-Resident Ordinary) account is a must.

Hope we have addressed your query. Please note that we have taken some inputs from Etica Wealth to resolve this query.

Regards,

Team Cafemutual