As a non-Resident Indian, you mainly concentrate on progressing in your career abroad
or growing the business that you may have setup in a foreign country. But at some point of time you are defiantly going to feel the need for coming back to your roots. Even if not permanently, you shall always wish to have some investments or assets in your home country just so that you have something to fall back on in case of any untoward conditions such as an economic recession or even a personal tragedy. This is where NRI Depository services come in handy. Here are a few facts that you should keep in mind while selecting a service provider:
NRIs should open an account only with those firms or banks that are a registered Depository Participant of the National Securities and Depository Limited. Though almost all banks in India today are registered and offer demat services. So it is best to contact your bank and let them take care of providing you NRI Depository services or help you arrange someone who can do the same.
Though generally there are no permissions required from the reserve Bank of India, certain credits or debits in the account may require some specific permission to be completed. It is the service providers job to guide you with these formalities.
But here it may be noted that NRIs do not require any permissions for dematerialization or re-materialization of securities. But only those physical securities that have the NR-Non Repatriable or NR-Repatriable status can be dematerialized.
One of the basic differences in an NRI demat account and a normal demat account is that NRIs will have to hold separate accounts for investing in different schemes. That is, an account meant for investing in securities under the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) schemes cannot be the same as that used for a Portfolio Investment Scheme (PIS) and so on. Also separate accounts are required for holding Repatriable and Non-repatrialbe shares.