NEW DELHI, Mar 23: With the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) finalising norms for the country's first International Financial Services Centre (IFSC), Gujarat's GIFT City expects to tap business worth USD 50 billion annually that India has been losing to global financial hubs like Singapore and Dubai.
GIFT City also expects other regulators, RBI and IRDA, to come out with their norms in the coming days for the banking and insurance entities, respectively, which would set up shop in the proposed International Financial Services Centre.
The game-changing regulations are aimed at creating a vibrant IFSC within India on the lines of Dubai and Singapore and help check the flight of trading in rupee and Indian securities to such offshore financial hubs.
The move would allow companies incorporated outside India to raise money in foreign currencies by issuance and listing of their equity shares on the stock exchanges within the IFSC, where individual and institutional investors from India and abroad, including NRIs, would be allowed to trade.
The IFSC regulatory regime would allow the Indian and foreign stock exchanges to set up separate bourses within the IFSC as subsidiaries, while market entities from India and abroad would be allowed to operate there by providing issuance and trading in depository receipts and debt securities of domestic as well as overseas companies.
The capital and other requirements have been relaxed for some time for the exchanges, clearing corporations and depositories to set shop in the IFSC.
Mutual funds and Alternative Investment Funds set up in the IFSC can also invest in the securities listed there.
"Stock exchanges and clearing corporations would be provided concessions for setting up ventures in the IFSC. All existing exchanges would be allowed to set up their subsidiaries in the IFSC under the relaxed regimes," Sebi Chairman U K Sinha told reporters after a meeting of Sebi's board.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who also addressed Sebi's board earlier this morning, had announced in the Budget last month that India's first IFSC would be set up in GIFT City in Gujarat.
Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) would be the country's first IFSC, with which top bourses BSE and NSE have already signed MoUs for setting up international exchanges there.
The move is expected to capture an estimated Rs 1,334 crore per day or Rs 2 lakh crore per year worth of trading in rupee derivatives that currently goes to locations outside India.
Presenting the Union Budget for 2015-16, Jaitley had said that appropriate regulations for IFSCs would be issued in March, which would be on the lines of global financial centres of Singapore and Dubai.
"Even though India produces some of the finest financial minds, including in international finance, they have few avenues in India to fully exhibit and exploit their strength to the country's advantage," he had said.
Under the new regime, rules and regulations differ from those applicable outside these IFSCs.
GIFT City's CEO Ramakant Jha said the new guidelines would provide a much-needed fillip to the new IFSC regime and it is a much needed step to save billions of dollars worth financial services business that India is losing out to other global hubs. .
"GIFT City has a potential to bring back USD 50 billion annually which we are losing out to other global hubs, " its MD and CEO Ramakant Jha told PTI.
"Sebi has approved the norms for financial institutions setting up shop at GIF City in Ahmedabad. Now we, are expecting guidelines from Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDA) by end of this month," he added.
Jha said that such centres will help to check the flight of trading in rupee and Indian securities to such offshore financial hubs.
GIFT City was conceptualised as a pet project of the Gujarat government when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was the state's chief minister.
