Dear Friends,

I have searched the forum but didnt find an answer and so, posting a new question here.

I would like to know whether OCI Holders(Overseas Citizen of India) eligible to invest in Indian stock exchange. Anybody had experience in it? Please share. I have googled and i see only NRIs can invest in Stock Market but nowhere mentioned about OCI Holders.

If you have any links, please post.

Many Thanks,
Mohan.

Yes you can.

Investment for Non Indians depend on the sectors they are investing and also the formalities might be different.
In my case one of my German counterpart wanted to invest in my company and we had to get the RBI's permission for it.

@savion

does your german counterpart hold OCI ?

No. He is a German-French by birth.

But i also feel OCI are as good as non indians even though they possess a OCI.

@savion

What you are talking about is investing in a company and/or take management control of a company registered in India. Yes, for such purposes one needs to get RBI's permission. But then, AFAIK this has been eased for most, if not all, industries. If I'm not wrong the same rules apply to FIIs too.

@meetmohan

Yes, you can invest in Indian stock market directly as an individual. OCI is in effect nothing but NRI but only called differently and it gives you the same set of entitlements that NRIs get.

Though, there is a problem I see here. For investing in India you should have a PAN Card + DEMAT account which has a prerequisite of local address and a proof of it, which you do not have. OCI doesn't have an Indian address on it! but only your German address.

Unfortunately, OCI is a very expensive tourist visa to visit India all your life, anytime you want, without any hassles. Effectively, you can't get a SIM card with this in India because you won't be able to prove your residence in India. No official process in India has been updated to accept this ID as a valid ID. Banks too do not accept it as a sole ID proof.

It looks like all this was not thought through before this new visa was introduced. Shouldn't all the OCI holders in Germany lodge a RTI request to get a clarification from the Govt. of India about this? Or is there any other way to get this thing sorted out?

Regards,
Rohith

@Rohith,

You wrote "OCI is in effect nothing but NRI" - NO. With OCI, it is almost impossible to invest in Share Market. I have called 2 Brokerage houses to get a Trading and Demat account - Geojit, India bulls. They can open accounts only for NRIs.

Do you know any brokerage house which accepts OCI holders?

As you said, NRIs has to take always permission from RBI to invest in every company as they want to monitor the foreign money flowing into the country.(i dont know how will they verify if suppose i buy shares from a particular company without taking any permission).

Any OCIs who have knowledge on this, please share.

Thanks,
Mohan.

@meetmohan

I guess you did not really understand the problem here, let me try to explain again.

NRIs and OCIs do have the same set of rights and privileges as shown here: http://mha.nic.in/pdfs/oci-chart.pdf

For all practical purposes there is no difference between these two categories. Here I'm quoting from the benefits section "Parity with Non resident Indians (NRIs) in respect of economic, financial and educational fields except in relation
to acquisition of agricultural or plantation
properties. No parity shall be allowed in the
sphere of political rights."

Therefore, any OCI should be able to operate and invest in India without any problem. The problem is with the implementation of the same where financial institutions like banks and brokerage firms have not been informed enough to do this. On the other hand there have been no explicit modifications to the procedures of supplying satisfactory documentation to open an account at these FIs as well.

This is a catch-22 situation for all the parties involved.

Coming to your other question of RBI permission, that is a completely different matter altogether. You as an individual (and most of us in this forum) would be investing in secondary market and sometimes in primary markets. However well you plan your investments you will never be able to gain management control of the company you are investing in. This permission has nothing to do with Forex but for satisfying other legal frameworks like money laundering and FI investment limits in sensitive industries etc.

Of course, this does not hold for those high net-worth individuals who are always looking for better investment opportunities to make their next fortune.

BTW, just to clarify again, I too am an OCI holder and have been having these problems ever since. I could not get a SIM card on my own but rather had to rely on my friends and relatives to get me one.

This would be the same for every other walk of life where you would have to present a valid ID and address proof. This is a fundamental problem with the newer IDs.

Most of the problem maybe because you dont have a PAN number which is compulsory nowadays. Getting a PAN is easy. Use your permanent address in india, can also be applied online
https://tin.tin.nsdl.com/pan/index.html
or by visiting the office, pay around 100 Rs and the card comes home in 2 weeks. With this one can open a Demat account with most of the banks.

One can get PAN even with a foreign address..see link below
http://www.tin-nsdl.com/downloads/Additionalguidelines.pdf

Dont see why it is difficult to invest as an OCI

http://www.sbicapsec.com/OurNRITrading.aspx
http://www.motilaloswal.com/home/

For easy access and consolidating all your investments I would recommend using https://www.fundsindia.com/

I am using it and am satisfied. In case you need a financial advisor, just send me a personal note. I am using one and am satisfied with the services provided.

NOTE: I have DEMAT account with SBI, but still chose this to make the process easy.

@Rohith,

Thanks for the comparitive chart of NRI, OCI...May be as you told, the public is not aware of the term OCI.

@Raj,
Thanks for the interesting and useful link:
http://www.sbicapsec.com/OurNRITrading.aspx

I will surely contact them but the other link motilalOswal, i see nowhere mentioned about OCI. Anyway, one link is more than enough, many thanks.

Cheers,
Mohan.

Hallo,

OCI card holders are eligible to hold and maintain NRI/NRO bank accounts in India after getting German Citizenship?

Thank you

@justdoit

AFAIK, law does not force one to give up all things one holds after a change in one's status. Just because you created these accounts when you were still an Indian citizen, they all can still be used legally.

OCIs are at par with NRIs except you cant commit scam such as Raju did or you cant agigitate like anna hazare...

Sometimes I (being an NRI) too think there is no difference (from the tax perspective) in investing in mutual funds through a local (non-nre) account.

Because as per the law there are no tax/exit-load difference for NRIs and residents. http://www.hdfcfund.com/NRI/
Questions to watch:
What is the tax liability for income received from your mutual funds?
What is the tax liability on redemptions?

Which leads me to another question: When I am going for vacation, is it legal to invest in Mutual Funds through a normal account that I opened when I was a resident Indian.

Please shed some light on this...

Dear All,

Iam a OCI holder and i want to invest in indian stocks. I called many brokerage houses but they didnt open a trading + demat account as they are new to OCI, they are saying that they will easily open an account if iam a NRI holding indian passport.

Do you know any company which can open a trading account for OCI holders? Please share.


Thanks,
Mohan.