GIFT IFSC crosses US$ 100 million business mark

Gandhinagar

India’s first International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) at Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) has crossed the US$ 100 million business transactions mark in three months time and is expected to cross US $1 billion (1000 million) in next 3 to 4 months, Mr. Ajay Pandey, MD & Group CEO of GIFT City said today.

Just two banks, YES Bank and Federal Bank have generated this business within three months of their IFSC Banking Units (IBU) becoming operational at GIFT IFSC. YES Bank was the first to set up an IBU at GIFT IFSC in October last year and Federal Bank’s IBU started functioning a few weeks later in November, he said.

A unit at GIFT IFSC is equivalent to a foreign branch and hence facilitates the Bank to function as such from within India. IBU offers facilities like buyers’ credit; external commercial borrowing (ECB); accepting deposits and providing credit facilities to wholly owned subsidiaries/joint ventures of Indian companies registered abroad. IBUs can also undertake factoring/ forfeiting of export receivables; treasury activities like overseas money market operations, investments in overseas securities; and transactions in derivatives and structured products.

“Another dozen plus Banks and Insurance players are going to commence operations at GIFT IFSC in the coming few months. The IFSC at GIFT is attracting a lot of interest from the Financial Services sector in India, especially from banks, insurance companies and capital market players who want to tap the global markets. We expect that the next big milestone of US$ 1 billion business transactions at GIFT IFSC will be achieved shortly,’ he said.

GIFT City is India’s First Global Financial Hub. Part of GIFT City is notified as multi-service SEZ with International Financial Service Centre (IFSC) status which is catering to India’s large financial services potential by offering global firms, world-class infrastructure and facilities. It is attracting the top talent in the country by providing the finest quality of life. It is estimated that GIFT would provide 5 lakh direct and an equal number of indirect jobs which would require 62 million square feet of commercial, residential and social facilities with total investment of about Rs. 78000 crore over next 10 years.

– DeshGujarat