Yes. Foreign nationals resident in India can open and maintain resident Rupee account in India.

Authorised dealers can permit such remittance, subject to the position stated for Question 1 above, after netting of the commission of local advertisement agent, as also local television channel agent and applicable taxes. Authorised dealers are required to satisfy themselves about the applicant's eligibility to advertise, bonafides of the transactions, and that they are in compliance with the Government of India Notification No.G.S.R.381(E) dated May 3, 2000 and S.O.301(E) dated March 30, 2001.

ADF seeks to ensure submission of correct and consistent data from the banks straight from their systems to Reserve Bank without any manual intervention.

Ans. The PSS Act, 2007 provides for the regulation and supervision of payment systems in India and designates the Reserve Bank of India (Reserve Bank) as the authority for that purpose and all related matters. The Reserve Bank is authorized under the Act to constitute a Committee of its Central Board known as the Board for Regulation and Supervision of Payment and Settlement Systems (BPSS), to exercise its powers and perform its functions and discharge its duties under this statute. The Act also provides the legal basis for “netting” and “settlement finality”. This is of great importance, as in India, other than the Real Time Gross Settlement (RTGS) system all other payment systems function on a net settlement basis.

If cheques are lost in transit or in the clearing process or at the paying bank's branch under physical instrument delivery clearing, the bank should immediately bring the same to the notice of the presenting customer (beneficiary)’s notice so that the customer can inform the drawer to record stop payment and can also take care that other cheques issued anticipating the credit arising out of the lost cheque are not dishonoured due to non-credit of the amount of the lost cheques / instruments.

It may however be noted that the probability of losing the physical instrument in the hands of paying bank is remote in the locations covered by CTS as clearing is undertaken on the basis of images. If the instrument is lost after lodging with the collecting bank but before truncating the same for sending through image-based clearing, the presenting bank should follow the procedure indicated above.

The customer is entitled to be reimbursed by banks for related expenses for obtaining duplicate instruments and interest for reasonable delays in obtaining the same.

Ans : Infrastructure Debt Funds (IDFs), can be set up either as a Trust or as a Company. A trust based IDF would normally be a Mutual Fund (MF), regulated by SEBI, while a company based IDF would normally be a NBFC regulated by the Reserve Bank.

Ans. Under scale-based regulations (SBR) for NBFCs, an NBFC-IFC can be in the middle layer or the upper layer (and not in the base layer), as the case may be. Depending on the layer under which an NBFC-IFC is placed, the exposure limits are given below:

	Exposure limits for the NBFC- IFCs in the middle layer (as a % of Tier 1 capital)	Exposure limits for NBFC-IFCs in the upper layer as per large exposure framework (as % of eligible capital base)
Single borrower	30%	25% (additional 5% with Board approval)
Single group of borrowers	50%	35%

To further enhance the access of such Gilt Account Holders (herein after referred to as GAHs) to NDS-OM, an internet based web application is provided to such clients who can now have direct access to NDS –OM, the system owned by RBI. The internet based utility permits GAH to directly trade (buying and selling) in Government Securities (G-Sec) in the secondary market. The access is however, subject to controls by respective Primary Member (PM) with whom GAHs have gilt account and current account.

An application can be any application, addressed to any department of RBI, through which members of the public can apply (except such applications for which specific instructions have been given regarding mode of submission, etc.)

Bank’s lending to the Micro, Small and Medium enterprises as under is eligible to be reckoned for priority sector advances:

(i) The definition of MSMEs will be as per Government of India, Gazette Notification S.O. 2119 (E) dated June 26, 2020 read with circulars FIDD.MSME & NFS.BC.No.3/06.02.31/2020-21 dated July 2, 2020, FIDD.MSME & NFS. BC. No.4/06.02.31/2020-21 dated August 21, 2020, FIDD.MSME & NFS.BC.No.13/06.02.31/2021-22 dated July 07, 2021 and updated from time to time.

(ii) Further, such MSMEs should be engaged in the manufacture or production of goods, in any manner, pertaining to any industry specified in the First Schedule to the Industries (Development and Regulation) Act, 1951 or engaged in providing or rendering of any service or services. All bank loans to MSMEs conforming to the above guidelines qualify for classification under priority sector lending.

Detailed guidelines on lending to the Micro, Small and Medium enterprises are available in our Master Direction FIDD.MSME & NFS.12/06.02.31/2017-18 dated July 24, 2017. The instructions issued by RBI, to banks, on various matters are available on our website www.rbi.org.in.