Following the Home Ministry’s order for State Bank of India (SBI) to report daily details of overseas donors, including the purpose of remittances, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has modified the NEFT and RTGS systems for FCRA-related transactions.
Foreign contributions can only be received in the “FCRA account” of SBI’s New Delhi Main Branch under the FCRA. These contributions can come directly from foreign banks through the SWIFT and NEFT and RTGS systems, as well as from Indian intermediary banks.
SBI is required to report daily to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) donor information, including name, address, country of origin, amount, currency, and purpose of remittance, in order to meet RBI requirements. The new guidelines will go into effect on March 15, 2023.
The RBI has also given banks instructions to make the necessary adjustments to their core banking and middleware solutions in order to collect the necessary information when sending foreign donations to SBI via NEFT and RTGS.
Under the Narendra Modi-led government, the FCRA regulations have been tightened since 2014. As a result, nearly 2,000 Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have had their FCRA registrations revoked because they broke the law in different ways. 22,762 organizations were FCRA-registered as of December 2021.
