Management control, administrative control and market conduct of insurance business carried out by IIOs and IIIOs are brought within a regulatory framework applicable in International Financial Services Centres. Its objective is to establish a framework for these operational domains and their regulatory treatment in relation to insurance business undertaken by IIOs and IIIOs.

Regulation 1 brings the International Financial Services Centres Authority (Management Control, Administrative Control and Market Conduct of Insurance Business) Regulations, 2023 into force upon publication in the Official Gazette. The applicability provision covers all International Financial Services Centres Insurance Offices and applies to International Insurance Intermediary Offices to the specified extent, identifying both categories as regulated entities within International Financial Services Centres.

Escrow service is redefined as a service supplied by a payment service provider under an agreement, through which money is held in an escrow account maintained with an IFSC Banking Unit or an IFSC Banking Company for one or more parties completing a transaction. The definition links the provider's holding of money to the transaction-completion process and confines the escrow account to specified IFSC banking arrangements.

Proper officers must scrutinize GST registration applications and supporting documents for completeness, authenticity and consistency, with particular attention to business-address proof. Risk ratings, prior PAN-linked registrations, cancellations, suspensions, rejected applications and suspicious premises must inform verification. Deficiencies require electronic clarification, while failure or refusal to undergo Aadhaar authentication requires immediate physical verification. Applications must be accepted, rejected or queried within prescribed time limits to prevent deemed approval through officer inaction. High-risk and deemed-approved registrations may require post-registration physical verification and compliance monitoring.

Principals and auctioneers must declare warehouses used to store tea, coffee, rubber and similar auction goods as additional places of business. Books for each place are ordinarily maintained there, but may be kept at the principal place of business where difficulties arise, after written intimation to the jurisdictional proper officer. Input tax credit remains subject to other applicable conditions and applies where the auctioneer claims credit on supplies from the principal and the goods are supplied only through auction.

Faceless Assessment electronically assigns selected bills of entry to designated assessing officers for verification through ICEGATE and e-Sanchit. Officers may accept self-assessment, seek information, reassess, or order examination and testing. Port Assessment Groups retain non-assigned and referred cases, examination, inspection, enforcement-related action, provisional-assessment finalisation, demand proceedings, and specified post-assessment functions. Turant Suvidha Kendras accept bonds and bank guarantees and undertake supporting verification and document functions. Reassessment differing from self-assessment requires a speaking order and an opportunity of hearing unless electronically accepted.

Payment Service Providers must give customers and potential customers a prescribed statement that authorisation does not assure recovery of all funds if the provider's business fails. The statement must appear in publicly available material, be given before use of the service, and be supplied in writing to customers who did not receive it earlier. Before transaction approval, providers must supply details of the beneficiary, amount, fees, execution time limits, finality, irrevocability, and applicable exchange rate.

Regular and Significant Payment Service Providers must safeguard Payment Service User funds through institutional liability undertakings, guarantees, trust accounts, or other specified methods. Applicable funds must be held in separate escrow accounts with an IBU for each relevant payment service. E-money providers must maintain end-of-day escrow balances sufficient for outstanding e-money and payments due, limit escrow credits and debits to permitted purposes, and must not use e-money funds for lending, extend credit, pay returns, facilitate illegal activities, or permit cash withdrawal from e-wallets.

Minimum net-worth requirements impose phased capital thresholds on Regular and Significant Payment Service Providers. Regular providers must maintain prescribed net worth at commencement and increase it by the end of the third financial year. Significant providers must meet an initial threshold within ninety days of designation and a higher threshold by the end of the third financial year. Net worth includes specified equity, reserves and compulsorily convertible preference shares, subject to exclusions and adjustments for losses, intangible assets and deferred revenue expenditure.

Schedule IV exempts specified persons from authorisation under the International Financial Services Centres Authority (Payment Services) Regulations, 2024. The exemption applies to an IFSC Banking Company or IFSC Banking Unit licensed or permissioned under the Banking Regulation Act, 1949, persons licensed to issue credit cards in an IFSC, and any other person or class of persons specified by the Authority.

Surrender of authorisation by an operational Payment Service Provider requires a Board-approved written request, a Chartered Accountant's certificate of customer balances, escrow details and liabilities, a liability repayment plan, and an undertaking not to incur fresh liabilities. The Authority may require public notices and monthly progress reports. Following extinguishment of customer and merchant liabilities, a statutory auditor's no-liability certificate and the original Certificate of Authorisation must be submitted for cancellation. Providers that have not commenced operations must additionally establish non-commencement and submit their latest audited balance sheet.

Payment Service Providers must establish effective systems and controls to ensure that Relevant Persons meet fit and proper requirements. Assessments must be conducted in the prescribed format at appointment and at reasonably regular intervals. Fit and proper status requires fairness, integrity, financial integrity, good reputation, character and honesty, together with the absence of disqualifications such as specified convictions, pending recovery proceedings, insolvency, financial unsoundness, wilful-defaulter status, regulatory restraints and fugitive-economic-offender status.

Payment Services include account issuance, e-money issuance, escrow, cross-border money transfer, and merchant acquisition, subject to specified exclusions. Exclusions cover authorised-agent transactions, paper payment instruments, settlement-system transactions, securities asset servicing, own-account and intra-group transfers, currency transportation, technical services without possession of funds, and qualifying limited-use instruments. Significant Payment Service Provider designation conditions depend on transaction-value thresholds for non-e-money-account services and average daily e-money values for e-money account issuance or e-money issuance.

Payment Service Providers must preserve designated financial, compliance, client and capital-market records in a format suitable for electronic retrieval for a minimum ten-year period commencing from the date operations begin. Required records include periodic financial statements, auditors' reports, quarterly net-worth statements, anti-money-laundering and know-your-customer compliance material, client account-opening documents, powers of attorney, signature-authority forms, and any further records specified from time to time.

GST refund reapplication may be made where a registered person inadvertently filed a NIL claim in FORM GST RFD-01A/RFD-01 for a particular period and category despite having a genuine refund entitlement. Eligible persons must file the renewed claim under the "Any Other" category for the same period and provide required supporting documents. For specified unutilized input tax credit refund categories, no subsequent-period claim under the same category may have been filed. The proper officer must scrutinise eligibility, determine the admissible amount, and may require debit from the electronic credit ledger before issuing refund and payment orders.

Payment Service Providers must furnish audited financial statements, including the balance sheet, profit and loss statement, cash or fund flow statement, and auditor's report, within three months after finalisation. Auditor remarks or observations on business conduct or accounts must be accompanied by a suitable explanation. The filing period may be extended by up to one month on application.

Every Payment Service Provider must submit requisite documents and information in the format and manner specified by the Authority. This mandatory reporting obligation establishes an Authority-directed framework for collecting returns, documentation and other information from Payment Service Providers.

Payment Service Providers must maintain their place of business and registered office in an IFSC. Activities relating to payment services from a business location outside the IFSC require prior approval from the Authority. An IFSC-based business presence and registered office are mandatory, subject to approved externally located activities.

Regulation 30 establishes an enforcement mechanism for defaults by Payment Service Providers. Where a provider contravenes applicable regulatory provisions, or any direction or order issued under the payment services framework, the Authority may initiate appropriate enforcement action. The provision links non-compliance with regulatory requirements, directions, and orders to potential enforcement proceedings.

Payment Service Providers in IFSC must maintain adequate staff to address Payment Service User queries, complaints and grievances within thirty days of receipt. Users must have one or more accessible channels for raising queries and lodging complaints. Disputes unresolved through internal grievance redressal must be addressed through online conciliation and/or online arbitration as specified by the Authority. Providers must retain records of queries, complaints, grievances and their redressal.