GANDHINAGAR: Six listed companies have applied for licences to set up corporate treasury centres in Gujarat International Finance Tec-City, or GIFT City, said Kalyanaraman Rajaraman, chairperson of the International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA).
The applications signal rising interest in India’s offshore financial hub as large companies look to centralize global cash and risk management. While the regulator declined to identify the applicants, Rajaraman said demand is likely to rise over time.
“We have issued 10 authorizations till date… we are talking to almost every MNC (multinational company). By the end of this year, we will have at least double, if not triple, of that number,” Rajaraman told Mint in an interview on the sidelines of the IFSCA Corporate Treasury Conference 2026 in Gandhinagar.
The conference, the first of its kind, was attended by about 30 public sector entities, private companies and multinational companies—those with an India presence and those evaluating an entry—highlighting the widening appeal of GIFT’s treasury framework.
“We always felt that it would be a good proposition for Indian MNCs… however, we have also got very good interest from foreign companies having business in India and also not having business in India,” Rajaraman said.
Companies that have already set up shop in GIFT City include GAIL Global, IOC Global Capital Management, OVL Overseas, ReNew Treasury, ArcelorMittal Treasury Centre India, AMNS Global Treasury Centre, Welspun Global, Global Treasury, ATSOL Global and Amefird Treasury, the IFSCA website showed.
Last year, the IFSCA revamped the corporate treasury centre framework to align it with global practices and position GIFT City as a regional hub for managing group-level finance functions.
Offshore base
The idea is to allow companies to pool liquidity, raise capital, manage foreign exchange and interest rate risks, and deploy surplus funds from a single offshore base. Activities permitted include borrowing and lending within the group, transacting in financial instruments, undertaking derivatives for hedging, and even acting as a holding company or advisory hub for financial risk management.
The framework offers regulatory and tax incentives including principle-based regulations, exemptions from certain prudential norms, zero withholding tax on specific intra-group loans, and a concessional tax regime, making it comparable to established hubs in Singapore or Dubai. Rajaraman emphasized that the corporate treasury model is designed to create a broader financial ecosystem in GIFT City.
“It also gives business to other parts of the ecosystem like banks, advisors, consultants and others. So, it is truly becoming an ecosystem,” he said.
The push comes as the Indian rupee has persistently depreciated against the US dollar, increasing the importance of sophisticated treasury operations for companies with global exposure. In FY26, the Indian rupee has declined by 11%.
Centralized treasury centres allow companies to hedge currency risks more efficiently, optimize funding costs and manage liquidity across jurisdictions – capabilities that are becoming critical in a volatile macro environment.
However, a key challenge is the lack of automation in cross-border cash movement systems within GIFT City, particularly around SWIFT-based transactions. While global treasury hubs typically offer seamless, automated daily cash sweeping, banks in GIFT City still rely on manual processes, which reduces efficiency and adds operational friction.
In global treasury operations, SWIFT acts as the backbone for moving money across jurisdictions and a daily SWIFT setup allows companies to automatically sweep balances from multiple accounts into a central treasury pool. However, in GIFT City, companies have to accumulate funds and transfer them periodically rather than in real time.
Lack of automation
“Someone has to push it once a week or once a month. You accumulate the cash and push it to the global cash flow,” said the treasury head of a multinational group company that is evaluating setting up shop in GIFT City, highlighting the gap with hubs such as Singapore or the Netherlands.
The lack of automation also raises governance and control concerns, especially for companies managing complex global cash flows. Manual intervention requires additional oversight on who initiates transactions and how much is being moved. He said this becomes a key consideration when pitching GIFT City internally within multinational groups, where treasury decisions are often benchmarked against global standards.
Despite the tax incentives that GIFT City offers, corporate treasuries are concerned about policy and regulatory stability, especially after the Reserve Bank of India capped the net open positions of banks on 27 March to $100 million at the end of each day.
On 1 April, the RBI tightened restrictions on related-party trades, designed to break the link between offshore speculative activity and onshore currency movements. However, on 20 April, the RBI clarified that genuine back-to-back hedges, including those between domestic and overseas branches, would not be treated as speculative, while allowing existing positions to run till maturity.
“With such quick changes in policies, investors are concerned about what stops the RBI from now intervening in GIFT City. What will you do then? You cannot reverse the structure,” the treasury person said.
Overall, companies acknowledged that GIFT City marks a significant step in enabling global treasury operations from India, even if the ecosystem is still evolving.