Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT), one of the world-class financial hubs and an operational smart city in Gujarat, is expecting more foreign insurers, reinsurers and foreign banks to set up shops soon at the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC), according to a senior official.
Claiming to be world class financial hub, the official told The Pioneer on Wednesday, “Many Indian banks and insurers are already operational in GIFT. We expect six Indian banks, four foreign banks as well as more global insurers and reinsurers to set up their offices soon here.”
“At present, there are 6-7 insurance firms including GIC Re operating in the city, wherein more than $20 billion of insurance policies have been written,” he added.
However, GIFT Managing Director and Group CEO Ajay Pandey said, “Besides foreign players in insurance sector, we also expect foreign banks to start operations. There are 6-7 Indian banks in the pipeline and four foreign banks are likely to open offices this year.”
“At present, 11 Indian banks are operational in GIFT city. The financial transactions by these banks have crossed $8 billion,” Pandey added.
Pandey further said that more than 150 companies are operating from GIFT city at present. “We expect more companies will join the GIFT in near future as we get huge positive responses from them.”
GIFT is an integrated development on 886 acres of land with 62 million square feet of built-up area which includes office space, residential, schools and hospitals. It also has a dedicated multi-services special economic zone (SEZ) for international operations for the services sector. The SEZ also has a status of India's first IFSC.
The city has generated 8,000 jobs and is hopeful that it will reach to 9,000 by March 2018 and massive employment is expected to rise 50 per cent year on year basis. The GIFT city is hopeful that the office of Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) at the city would see the first set of hearing soon.
“For a successful financial services centre to be there, you need independent dispute resolution mechanism. So we convinced the SIAC to open their office and they opened office in August 2017. And hopefully, we should start seeing the first set of hearing soon,” Pandey said.