RISING PROSPECTS OF REALTY & STOCKS, PLUS BETTER INTEREST RATES PROMPT OVERSEAS INDIANS TO KEEP MONEY IN NRO ACCOUNTS. NRIS are still buying the India story. Instead of parking funds in repatriable schemes like FCNR (B) and NRE (RA), more money is flowing to nonrepatriable NRO accounts. Even though returns are repatriable, they are tax deducted. Lured by the rising investment options both in real estate and stocks, the Indian diaspora is shunning the repatriable deposits. Instead, they are choosing to keep back and reinvest the capital by investing in NRO accounts. Here, the NRI can choose to take back home the income from his deposits back home. The Reserve Bank of India figures on NRO deposits, which it has recently started publishing shows that the inflows under non-resident ordinary (NRO) have more than doubled in FY08 to $1,080 million. While the foreign currency non-resident (banks) or FCNR (B) scheme has seen a net outflow of $1,048 million during the year. Net inflows under non-resident (external) rupee account or NR (E) RA were a paltry $149 million. Though the remittances sent by the Indian diaspora to their relatives back home which is akin to NRO deposits is soaring by the day, the NRO money is largely money in the concerned NRI’s custody. ......... Source: ET, 23 May 2008, Page 21.