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What Global Finance Leaders Are Saying About Investing in GIFT City IFSC

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What Global Finance Leaders Are Saying About Investing in GIFT City IFSC
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25 Nov 2025 6:17 PM IST


The GIFT City International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) with its regulatory body, the IFSCA, is not a concept anymore; it is an essential new axis in international finance. The best indication of this transformation is the statements made by the leaders themselves, who are investing capital and operations into the hub.

Through the analysis of the remarks posted by government, consultants, and fund managers, we have a clear image of why GIFT City is fast obtaining its niche among the already existing hubs such as Dubai, Singapore, and London.


Words of Experts!

  • “GIFT City is among some of the most intelligent decisions towards global leaders to grow and increase their business, investment and production. In my opinion, the perspectives of those leading the appointment commission are chiefly influenced by the political interests of their affiliated companies, which could potentially compromise the integrity of the entire appointment commission.”

– Pradip K. Modi, Founder of PKM Advisory and GiftCityAdvisor.

  • Google search is getting demand on a daily basis. This is due to the fact that the optimum opportunity will be taken in the Gift cities, India. Policy is extremely accommodating and conducive towards any kind of business and markets that will never be closed.

– Aman Solanki, Co-Founder, FinTech SEO Expert, Shivlam.

  • “It is because the single-window clearance mechanism by the IFSCA and the fact that we are proactive towards regulatory sandboxes, we can be as innovative as technology is, rather than bureaucracy. They provide regulatory flexibility, without jeopardising checks and balances that should be maintained by international investors.“

– Dr Lena Schmidt, CEO, Global FinTech Unicorn

  • “Positioning Places GIFT City as one of the financial locations in the world, like Hong Kong and Tokyo,o through real-time foreign currency transactions.”

– Nirmala Sitharaman, Indian Union Finance Minister.

In the case of private equity and venture capital, GIFT City is not merely an offshore organisation; it is an aid door. The greatest attraction is the capability to arrange international funds, and then enter the rich capital markets in India using a single tax-effective hub.

It is the gate to the next decade of Asian economic growth. I would also make certain that the pertinent personnel are not informed about the confidential information. I would also ensure that the relevant individuals are not made aware of the confidential information. An international financial services centre consultant can help to be a part of the Gift City, India.


The GIFT City has major Sectoral Opportunities.

A. Global In-House Centres (GICs) and Treasury Operations.

The structure of creating Global In-House Centres (GICs), also referred to as the Captives and Corporate Treasury Centres is considered to be one of the greatest attractions to multinational corporations (MNCs).

The Value Proposition:

  • Cost and Talent Arbitrage: MNCs are able to outsource complex, high-value operations (such as compliance, internal audit, quantitative analysis, and IT development) to a tax-beneficial location, and take advantage of the enormous pool of skilled Indian financial and technical labour at a relatively low cost.
  • Corporate Treasury Efficiency: A 100 per cent tax holiday on foreign-sourced income for 10 out of the 15 years can be enjoyed by corporations that have migrated their global liquidity management and hedging functions to a GIFT City Corporate Treasury Centre (GCTC). This gets rid of high-tax administration in traditional jurisdictions.
  • Assembling Ecosystem: The support function ecosystem is quickly developing. As the IFSCA Bulletin (Jul-Sep 2025) indicates, there are 133 entities of Financial Support Services (including GICs) as per the snapshot of the end of the month of September 30, 2025, which indicates a substantial level of institutional interest and infrastructure.
  • Operational Efficiency: The single-window clearance offered by the IFSCA facilitates the setting up of a GIC or GCTC, which means that operations start quickly, which is an extremely important aspect of the global financial institution whose timeframe is strictly followed.

This exchange in any foreign currency within the IFSC is also a benefit in that it creates greater freedom in operation and lowers the conversion expenses.

A. Fund Management and Alternative Investment Funds

GIFT City is gaining more traction as global fund managers find it cheaper to set up their pooled investment vehicle in India via GIFT City by having an efficient jurisdiction to meet their objective of global capital and the Indian market.


The AIF Revolution:

The IFSCA has developed a very appealing regime of Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs), especially of the Category III AIFs, which have highly sophisticated investment strategies. This has made it a serious rival to Mauritius and Singapore due to the ability to create a fund management entity (FME) capable of co-locating fund operations and getting potentially concessional tax rates on management fees.

  • Key Opportunities:

India Access Funds: The funds may be organised within GIFT City, which will attract foreign capital that will be chiefly invested in India. This is a dependable path to foreign institutional investors (FIIs) and foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) by virtue of the regulatory predictability that IFSCA offers.

  • Global funds: Fund managers can equally organise funds in the IFSC to focus on the non- Indian international investments, fully utilising the tax-neutral environment.

Venture Capital: The Venture Capital Funds (VCFs) framework is specifically devoted to FinTech and new technology investments, which is in line with the so-called regulatory sandbox approach that the FinTech CEO referred to. This gives rise to significant synergy between innovation and capital.

C. FinTech, Banking and Insurance Innovation.

The IFSCA is directly interested in creating innovation, as the future development of finance, in its turn, is closely associated with technology.

· FinTech and Regulatory Sandboxes:

A regulatory sandbox is an environment that allows firms to test their new financial pr oducts, services, or technologies in a live environment with some regulations. The barriers to entry for startups are reduced while at the same time allowing the existing institutions to use such important global products, a settlement system based on blockchain or compliance applications powered by AI to be tested without being fully committed to regulation until they are proven viable.

· Banking and Capital Markets:

Global banks are establishing International Banking Units (IBUs) within the IFSC to provide corporate banking services, trade finance services and external commercial borrowings (ECBs) in other currencies. Likewise, capital market intermediaries are also taking services through the IFSC to offer clearing, custody and listing services, which are complementary to the vision of the Minister of foreign currency transactions being done in real time. The right to list the

foreign-denominated instruments on the IFSC exchanges (India INX and NSE IFSC) is one of the fundamental services to which global issuers and investors are attracted.


In brief, why are the leaders not investing?

This has been substantiated by the agreement of the world leaders in finance that GIFT City is an urgent need to navigate the future of international finance. There are four vital factors that drive investment decisions and they include a highly competitive tax environment; smooth ease of doing business which comes as a result of having single-window clearance and an

ever-expanding ecosystem (currently with 133 financial support entities); a promise of global parity through operational systems such as the FCSS; and, most exceptionally, it offers strategic access to global capital and the potential to grow exponentially across various industries, such as GICs, AIFs, and FinTech.


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