India’s first International Financial Services Centre to cross $1bn transactions soon: Ajay Pandey

Sheela Mamidenna

Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) as part of its next phase development has announced the launch of office buildings in the SEZ & non-SEZ area. It has invited proposals from international and national developers to participate in developing office buildings in the SEZ as well as the non-SEZ areas. GIFT City has so far received good response from the leading realty developers as well as leading BFSI and IT players. It has already made allotments of over 15 million square feet of built-up area (BUA) for the development of offices, residential apartments and other facilities to be developed at an estimated investment of more than Rs 10,000 crore.

India’s first International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) at GIFT City is already operational having leading banks like SBI, ICICI Bank, IDBI Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, YES Bank, Federal Bank and IndusInd Bank while The New India Assurance Co. Ltd., General Insurance Corporation of India, BSE International Exchange (IFSC) Ltd., BSE International Clearing Corporation (IFSC) Ltd and many more institutions are about to commence their operations shortly. In a very short period of time, international business of over $700 mn has been transacted from GIFT IFSC.

Speaking about the latest developments at GIFT City, Ajay Pandey, MD & Group CEO, GIFT City, replied to queries to The Dollar Business via mail.

Based on the latest press release you said that "In a very short period of time international business of over $700 mn has been transacted from GIFT IFSC." What was the duration you referred to and going forward how much FI do you expect to see in coming few months?

“With over $700 mn worth of business transactions already done at the IFSC in around ten months’ time, the same has been achieved by various banks conducting their transactions like ECB, Buyers Credit, loan Syndication etc. We are confident that the $1bn IFSC transactions mark will be crossed soon now.”

GIFT is attracting a lot of interest from the BFSI sector in India, especially from banks, insurance companies and other financial services players who want to tap the global markets. IFSC Banking Unit (IBU) allows an Indian bank to deliver a complete range of products to its clients with foreign currency funding requirements. IBU will also be able to meet the funding requirements of overseas entities which may be joint ventures or subsidiaries of its domestic clients or part of the value chain of its existing customers.”

Companies exporting ITeS have made their base in GIFT city. Can you name some that are going to be setting up base soon and how much of trade is expected from them in the coming few months?

“There are few IT/ITeS companies like Befree, Iship, Accvell, QX already operational at GIFT SEZ area and also some of the leading IT/ITeS MNCs like Oracle, Maxim Integrated etc. are operational in non-SEZ area of GIFT City. We are in discussion with some of the leading IT/ITeS companies to set up their operations at GIFT City.”