Foreign Investments: Meaning of FDI, FPI and FII explained

An investment made in India by foreign entities, non-resident Indians, and persons of Indian origin in Indian securities including shares, government bonds, corporate bonds, convertible securities, infrastructure securities, etc., is known as foreign investment in India.

Based on the type of foreign Investments, they are classified as below.

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI)

Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI)

Foreign Institutional Investment (FII)

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI):

Foreign direct investment (FDI) is an investment made by a company or an individual in one country into business interests located in another country. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is when the foreign investing company or individual has direct control over the company that they are investing in. It’s not a process that is limited to just transferring monetary funds as an investment. In FDI, the foreign entity has a say in the day-to-day operations of the company. The government has set limits for equity investment in each sector, specifying the limit of shareholding. These sectorial limits are generally, up to 26%, up to 49%, up to 74%. In certain sectors like civil aviation, insurance intermediaries and coal and mining sectors, Pharmaceuticals, Railway infrastructure, Credit information companies, White label ATMs, and Financial Services activities regulated by financial sector regulators, viz., RBI, SEBI, IRDA, PFRDA, NHB or any other financial sector regulator with conditions as may be notified by the Government of India, 100% investments by FDIs without a cap are allowed.                  

Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI):

Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI) is an investment by foreign entities and non-residents in Indian securities including shares, government bonds, corporate bonds, convertible securities, infrastructure securities, etc. Unlike FDI investments, FPI does not provide the investor with direct ownership of a company’s assets and is relatively liquid depending on the volatility of the market.

Foreign institutional investors:

Foreign institutional investors are pension funds, investment banks, hedge funds, mutual funds, etc. located in a foreign country. The differences in FPI and FII are mostly in the type of investors and hence the terms FPI and FII are used interchangeably.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs), Non-Resident Indians (NRIs), and Persons of Indian Origin (PIOs) are allowed to invest in the primary and secondary capital markets in India through the portfolio investment scheme (PIS). The Reserve Bank of India monitors the ceilings on FII/NRI/PIO investments in Indian companies daily. For effective monitoring of foreign investment ceiling limits, the Reserve Bank has fixed cut-off points that are two percentage points lower than the actual ceilings. The cut-off point, for instance, is fixed at 8 per cent for companies in which NRIs/ PIOs can invest up to 10 per cent of the company’s paid-up capital. The cut-off limit for companies with 24 per cent ceiling is 22 per cent and for companies with 30 per cent ceiling, and so on. Similarly, the cut-off limit for public sector banks (including State Bank of India) is 18 per cent.

Related Posts:

Read: