About 43 foreign VC investors await RBI consent
By siliconindia   |   Thursday, 16 July 2009, 18:28 IST   |    5 Comments
Printer Print Email Email
About 43 foreign VC investors await RBI consent
Bangalore: About 43 foreign venture capital (VC) investors have been waiting for the requisite approval of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), to invest in the Indian start-ups. Google Holdings, DE Shaw Composite Investments, Sabre Abraaj Infrastructure and Kotak India Venture are among those VC firms who have been knocking the door of the central bank for approval. Mint reports that this delay in granting permission has led to the pending of 10 applications since 2005 and more 11 since 2006. According to the Securities and Exchange Board of India's (SEBI) website, 59 applications from foreign VC firms were pending with it on 31 May 2009, 43 of them have been waiting for RBI's clearance. Capital market regulator SEBI regulates the VC investors' applications and clears them only after the permission of the central bank. RBI gets involved because capital flows across national borders are involved. SEBI endeavors to process registrations within 21 working days after the submission of applications with all relevant documents. However, this time period is not related to the applications which are required to be cleared by other regulators including RBI. On the pending report, an RBI source said that 15 of the 43 applications were for investments in real estate and they have be put on hold after consultation with the government and SEBI. Another 18 applications have been referred back to SEBI for rechecking the proper status and 10 applications are being processed. However, a Delhi- based economist who requested for anonymity said that RBI should handle these applications transparently and clear the suitable ones fast. "RBI should reject unauthentic application rather than taking so much of time in processing them," he said.

Digital Supply Chain Transformation – Winning the AI/ML Way