FEMA compliance review

Assessment and deliverables

We start with residency, entity type, ownership and the legal character of each receipt or payment. A foreign-currency bank entry does not by itself establish whether the transaction is investment, borrowing, trade or another permitted flow.

The review produces a transaction register, supporting-document gaps and a prioritised action list. We separate a missed report from an underlying eligibility issue and identify matters to discuss with the authorised dealer bank.

Agree the entities and periods covered, then reconcile the proposed transaction list to the available bank and accounting records. Identify non-cash changes and other events disclosed by the business that would not appear as a new remittance. The review should state the limits of the population examined rather than imply that checking selected bank entries covers every cross-border event.

Prepare the evidence

• Ownership chart and residency facts
• Agreements and transaction chronology
• Bank advices and remittance records
• Prior reports, acknowledgements and correspondence

Keep the agreement date, payment date and relevant corporate-action dates separate in the chronology. Link each event to the documents and acknowledgements available at the time. Where records conflict, identify the discrepancy and the person responsible for confirming the facts before treating one version as the basis of the review.

A practical example

A payment described internally as an advance may fund shares, services or a loan. Resolve the contractual purpose before choosing the reporting route.

For the advance example, compare the signed terms, accounting description and subsequent use of the funds. If the arrangement changed after receipt, preserve both the original documents and the evidence of that change. The resulting chronology helps frame the question for the adviser or bank without retrospectively rewriting the transaction to match a convenient label.

Scope and fees

A document review does not regularise a contravention. Valuation, legal opinions and applications for specific permissions are separate assignments.

The proposal identifies the transactions and periods covered, client approvals, query support and professional fees. Government charges and external certifications are separate unless expressly included.

The handover separates missing records, factual inconsistencies, reporting questions and matters requiring substantive advice. Each action records its owner, supporting evidence and the outcome still needed. A bank query response or a prepared filing should remain distinguishable from an accepted report or an authority decision; the review itself does not close those actions.