Format, Procedure and Guidelines for submission of Statement of Financial Transactions (SFT) for Interest income
DG IT(S)/ADG(S)2/ Reporting Portal/2021/180
Government of India
Ministry of Finance
Central Board of Direct Taxes
Directorate of Income Tax (Systems)
Notification No. 2 of 2021
New Delhi, 20 April, 2021
Format, Procedure and Guidelines for submission of Statement of Financial Transactions (SFT) for Interest income
Section 285BA of the Income Tax Act, 1961 and Rule 114E requires specified reporting persons to furnish statement of financial transaction (SFT).
2. For the purposes of prefilling the return of income, CBDT has issued Notification No. 16/2021 dated 12.03.2021 to include reporting of information relating to interest income. The new sub rule 5A of rule 114E specifies that the information shall be furnished in such form, at such frequency, and in such manner, as may be specified by the Director General of Income Tax (Systems), with the approval of the Board.
3. The guidelines for preparation and submission of Statement of Financial Transactions (SFT) information are enclosed in Annexure A and Annexure B The data structure and validation rules are enclosed in Annexure C and Annexure D respectively. Notification No. 3 of 2018 Dated 5.04.2018 may be referred for the procedure for registration.
4. Reporting entities are required to prepare the data file in prescribed format from their internal system. An excel based report preparation utility has also been provided to assist small reporting entities in preparing data file. The data files prepared by internal system/report preparation utility should be validated using Text File Validator/Submission After validation, the text file is required to be compressed, encrypted and signed using the Text File Submission Utility before uploading on the reporting portal (https://report.insight.gov.in/). Reporting entities, having large number of data files, can also submit the data files using SFTP Server (specific request may be made for SFTP upload).
5. The statement of financial transactions shall be furnished on or before the 31st May, immediately following the financial year in which the transaction is registered or recorded.
6. The statement of financial transaction shall be signed, verified and furnished by the specified Designated Director. Where the reporting person is a nonresident, the statement may be signed, verified and furnished by a person who holds a valid power of attorney from such Designated Director. The data files are required to be uploaded at the reporting portal through the login credentials (PAN and password) of the designated director.
7. The reporting entities are advised to provide information of interest income, reported to Income Tax Department, to the account holder (in the form of Interest Certificate either through email or portal) which will enable taxpayers to reconcile the information displayed in the Annual Information Statement (AIS) (Form 26AS).
8. In case, the reporting person/entity comes to know or discovers any inaccuracy in the information provided in the statement or the defects have been communicated to the reporting person/entity, it is required to remove the defects by submitting a correction/deletion statement.
9. The reporting person/entity is required to document and implement appropriate information security policies and procedures with clearly defined roles and responsibilities to ensure security of submitted information and related information/documents. The reporting person/entity is also required to document and implement appropriate archival and retrieval policies and procedures with clearly defined roles and responsibilities to ensure that submitted information and related information/documents are available promptly to the competent authorities.
10. This Notification shall come into effect from the date of issue.
(Anu j. Singh)
DGIT (Systems), CBDT
Copy to:
1. PPS to the Chairman and Members, CBDT, North Block, New Delhi.
2. All Chief Commissioners/ Pr. Director Generals of Income Tax and all Chief Commissioners/ Director Generals of Income Tax — with a request to circulate amongst all officers in their regions/ charges.
3. JS (TPL)-1 842/ Media coordination and Official spokesperson of CBDT
4. DIT (IT)/ DIT (Audit)/ DiT (Vig.)/ ADG (System) 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,6 / CIT (CPC) Bangalore, CIT (CPC-TDS) Ghaziabad.
5. ADG (PR, PP&OL) with a request for advertisement campaign for the Notification.
6. TPL and ITA Divisions of CBDT.
7. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India, IP Estate, New Delhi.
8. Web Manager, “gov.in” for hosting on the website.
9. Database cell for uploading on irsofficersonline.gov.in and in DGIT (S) Corner.
10. ITBA publisher for uploading on ITBA portal.
(Sanjeev Singh)
ADG(Systems)-2 CBDT
Annexure A
Guidelines for Preparation of Statement of Financial Transactions (SFT)
| Transaction Code | SFT- 016 |
| Transaction Description | Interest Income |
| Nature and value of transaction | Interest paid/credited during the financial year. |
| Class of person required to furnish | (i) A banking company or a co-operative bank to which the Banking Regulation Act, 1949 (10 of 1949) applies (including any bank or banking institution referred to in section 51 of that Act);
(ii) Post Master General as referred to in clause (j) of section 2 of the Indian Post Office Act, 1898 (6 of 1898). (iii) Non-banking financial company which holds a certificate of registration under section 45-IA of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934 (2 of 1934), to hold or accept deposit from public. |
| Remarks | 1. The information is to be reported for all account/deposit holders where cumulative interest exceeds Rs 5,000/- per person in the financial year.
2. Interest which is exempt from tax under the Income-tax Act, 1961 such as interest on Public Provident Fund (PPF) Account, Foreign Currency Non-resident (FCNR) Account, Sukanya Samriddhi Account, Resident Foreign Currency Account etc. need not be reported. 3. While reporting the interest amount, deduction of Rs. 10,000/- available under section 80TTA should not be reduced from interest amount paid/credited. 4. In case of joint account, the interest paid/credited should be assigned to the first/primary account holder or specified assigned person as per Form 37BA. 5. In case of minor being the account holder, the information to be reported in the name of Legal Guardian. 6. Separate report is required to be submitted for each account type (i.e. S-Savings, T-Time Deposit, R-Recurring Deposit, O‑Others) and Interest on same account type is required to be aggregated in the report. 7. Interest will be the total amount of Interest paid/credited during the financial year. |
Annexure B
Guidelines for Submission of Statement of Financial Transactions (SFT)
1. Any file which does not meet the validation requirements will be rejected.
2. After upload each upload file will be given unique Statement ID.
3. The file upload status will be as below:
- Uploaded File uploaded and pending for processing.
- Accepted File accepted after processing.
- Rejected File rejected after processing.
4. In case of any error, complete file will be rejected and the rejection reason(s) can be viewed by clicking Rejected link under status column. User need to correct the relevant error(s) and upload the file again.
5. In case Reporting Entity needs to modify uploaded data, Correction Statement is required to be filed. In the Correction Statement, only those reports should be uploaded in which correction is required. Statement ID of the original Statement which is being corrected should be selected while uploading. The Report Serial Number (RSN) along with Original Statement ID will uniquely identify the report which is being corrected. If the correction statement is successfully accepted, the reports in the earlier statement will be marked as inactive and the newly uploaded report will be active.
6. In case Reporting Entity needs to delete uploaded data, Deletion Statement is required to be filed. In the Deletion Statement, only those reports should be uploaded which are to be deleted. Statement ID of the original Statement which is being deleted should be selected while uploading. The Report Serial Number (RSN) along with Original Statement ID will uniquely identify the report which is being deleted. If the Deletion Statement is successfully accepted, the reports in the earlier statement will be marked as inactive.
Annexure C
Data Structure
The information is required to be uploaded in data file. The data file should be in ASCII format with one report per line. All fields in each file should be delimited with the delimiter “|”. The data structure is as under:
| # | Field | Format | Mandatory | Remarks |
| 1. | RSN | Num (10) | Y | Report Serial Number is the unique number to identify each report in the file. |
| 2. | FY | Num (4) | Y | Financial Year (2020 for FY 2020-21) |
| 3. | Name | Char (150) | Y | Name of the person/ Entity |
| 4. | PAN | Char (10) | Y | PAN of the person. Mention PANNOTAVBL if PAN is not available. |
| 5. | Aadhaar | Char (15) | Aadhaar of the person. | |
| 6. | Mobile | Char (20) | Mobile Number of the person | |
| 7. | Char (100) | e-Mail Id of the person | ||
| 8. | Account Number | Char (20) | Y | Account Number (in which interest paid/ credited) |
| 9. | Type of Account |
Char (1) | Y | S-Savings, T-Time Deposit, R‑ Recurring Deposit, O-Others |
| 10. | Interest | Num (15) | Y | Total interest paid/ credited during the year (rounded off in nearest rupee) |
Note: The first record in the file should contain header text. There should not be any blank row(s) between reports.
Annexure D
Validation Rules
Upload Level Validations
Upload level validation would be done to ascertain that the correct file is being uploaded. The file would be rejected at the upload stage if it does not clear the upload level validations.
| # | Validation | Error Message |
| 1. | File should not be more than prescribed size |
File is more than prescribed size (refer User Guide). Please split the file. |
| 2. | File name should not have been uploaded earlier (Only for original statement) | The file name has already been uploaded earlier. |
| 3. | File Name is not in the specified format | File Name is not in the specified format. Name of File prepared by the utility should not be modified manually. |
| 4. | The entered Statement ID should be available (For Correction/ Deletion) | The entered Statement ID is not available. Please provide Statement ID generated for original file to submit correction/ deletion. |
| 5. | ITDREIN in the file name should match with the ITDREIN mentioned on Portal | ITDREIN in the file does not match with the ITDREIN mentioned on Portal |
File Level Validations
Any file which does not meet the following requirements will be rejected.
| # | Validation | Error Message |
| 1. | File should be generated using Submission Utility | File should be generated using Submission Utility. |
| 2. | The header in file should be as per specified format | The header in file should be as per specified format. |
| 3. | Failed Decryption | Failed Decryption. Please encrypt the file with a valid key using Validation and Encryption Utility and resubmit. |
| 4. | Failed Decompression | Failed Decompression. Please compress the file using Validation and Encryption Utility and resubmit. |
| 5. | Failed Signature Check | Failed Signature Check. Please sign the file with the Digital Signature using Validation and Encryption Utility and resubmit. |
| 6. | Signature Mismatch | Digital Signature used in file for signing
does not match with Digital Signature registered on Reporting Portal. Please resign the file with the Digital Signature of the Designated Director. |
| 7. | Signature not Uploaded | Digital Signature not uploaded. Please upload the digital signature certificate file on the Reporting portal. |
| 8. | Signature Expired | Signature Expired. Please upload the updated digital signature certificate on the Reporting portal as the existing certificate is expired. |
| 9. | Failed Threat Scan | Failed Threat Scan. Please scan the file for threats and viruses. Remove all detected threats and viruses prior to encryption. |
| 10. | Failed Virus scan | Failed Virus scan. Please scan the file for threats and viruses. Remove all detected threats and viruses prior to encryption. |
| 11. | RSN should not be blank (mandatory field) | RSN is blank in XX reports |
| 12. | RSN length should not be more than 10 | RSN length is more than 10 in XX reports |
| 13. | RSN field should not contain non numeric value. | Value in RSN field is nonnumeric in XX reports |
| 14. | RSN should not be in exponential (scientific) format. | RSN is in exponential (scientific) format in XX reports. |
| 15. | Duplicate RSN in file | Duplicate RSN in XX reports. |
| 16. | FY length should be 4 | FY length is not 4 in XX reports |
| 17. | FY field should not contain non numeric value. | Value in FY field is nonnumeric in XX reports |
| 18. | FY mentioned against each report should match with FY selected on upload screen. | The FY selected on upload screen is not matching with FY mentioned against XX reports. |
| 19. | Name field should not be blank (mandatory field) | Name is blank in XX reports |
| 20. | Name length should not exceed 150 character | Name length exceeds 150 character in XX reports |
| 21. | PAN length should be 10 | PAN length is not 10 in XX reports. Mention PANNOTAVBL if PAN is not available |
| 22. | Account Number field should not be blank (mandatory field) | Account Number is blank in XX reports |
| 23. | Account Number length should not exceed 20 | Account Number length exceeds 20 in XX reports |
| 24. | Account Number should not be in exponential (scientific) format. | Account Number is in exponential (scientific) format in XX records. |
| 25. | Type of account field should not be blank (mandatory field) | Type of account is blank in XX reports |
| 26. | Type of account length should not exceed 1 character | Type of account length exceeds 1 character in XX records |
| 27. | Type of account should not be other than (S, T, R, O) | Type of account is other than (S, T, R, O) in XX records. |
| 28. | Aadhaar length should not exceed 15 character | Aadhaar length exceeds 15 character in XX reports |
| 29. | Aadhaar should not be in exponential (scientific) format. | Aadhaar is in exponential (scientific) format in XX reports. |
| 30. | eMail length should not exceed 100 character | eMail length exceeds 100 character in XX reports |
| 31. | Mobile length should not exceed 20 | Mobile length exceeds 20 in XX reports |
| 32. | Mobile Number should not be in exponential (scientific) format. | Mobile Number is in exponential (scientific) format in XX reports. |
| 33. | Interest field should not be blank (mandatory field) | Interest is blank in XX reports |
| 34. | Interest field should not contain nonnumeric value. | Value in Interest field is nonnumeric in XX reports |
| 35. | Interest length should not exceed 15 digits | Interest length exceeds 15 digits in XX reports |
| 36. | Interest should not be in exponential (scientific) format. | Interest is in exponential (scientific) format in XX reports. |
| 37. | Duplicate Reports (PAN, Type of account, account number) | Duplicate values (PAN, Type of account, account number) in XX records. |
| 38. | Duplicate Reports (all fields other than RSN) | Duplicate Reports (all fields other than RSN) in XX reports. |
| 39. | Failed Original Report Serial Number in Correction/ Deletion Statement | Report Serial Number in XX Reports of Correction/ Deletion Statement does not match with the RSN in the Original Statement submitted earlier. |
| 40. | Failed Original Report Serial Number in correction/ deletion (after Deletion) | Report Serial Number in XX Reports of Correction/ Deletion Statement corresponds to the report already deleted. |
| 41. | Report details mentioned in Deletion Statement should match with details mentioned in original file | Details mentioned in XX Reports of Deletion Statement do not match with the details mentioned in the Original Statement submitted earlier (corresponding to the provided RSN). |
