GIFT City, India’s offshore-style financial hub in Gujarat, has become one of the region’s sharper growth stories. Bank assets there rose to about $193 billion at the end of September 2026 from $120.69 billion in June, according to K. Rajaraman, chairman of the International Financial Services Centres Authority, in a Bloomberg Television interview on Thursday. That is roughly 60% growth in just one quarter, a pace that keeps the hub in the conversation with Singapore and Hong Kong as India tries to build a larger international finance platform.
The headline number matters because this is not a broad market rally or a one-day stock reaction. It is a balance-sheet expansion story. Rajaraman said the increase came mainly from foreign currency deposits and external commercial borrowings, which tells investors where the momentum is coming from: banks, cross-border funding, and India’s growing appetite for structured offshore financing. In other words, GIFT City is not just a policy experiment anymore. It is starting to show real size in the places that matter for global finance.
The growth also fits a wider regional pattern. Asia’s financial centers often compete on speed, tax treatment, convertibility, and regulatory clarity rather than on flashy equity moves. When a hub can add assets this quickly, local markets tend to read it as evidence that capital is willing to move if the plumbing works. Here, the plumbing includes foreign currency deposits, borrowing channels, and a regulatory setup designed to make India more usable for global investors.
Rajaraman pointed to credit markets as the main engine. He said, “Sustained growth has come through credit markets, especially offered by the banks.” That is a useful clue. The rise in banking assets is not being described as a one-off inflow of speculative money. It is tied to ongoing lending and funding activity. For global investors, that makes the trend more durable than a headline burst, but it also means the hub’s growth will depend on whether banks keep finding borrowers and funding demand at scale.
A second piece of the puzzle is the RBI’s special swap facility for foreign-currency non-resident deposits. Business Standard reported that the facility ran from June through end-August and helped boost activity in GIFT City. That is important context because it suggests policy support helped accelerate the asset build-up. Investors watching India from abroad should note that the story is not simply “market enthusiasm.” It is also a policy-led deepening of the offshore finance ecosystem.
The actual figures show how quickly the hub has moved. IFSCA-published data showed banking assets at $120.69 billion in June, and Bloomberg reported that they had reached about $193 billion by end-September 2026. That jump of roughly 60% is large enough to change the way the market talks about GIFT City. It is no longer only a long-term ambition. It is an expanding platform with visible scale, even if it is still much smaller than the largest established Asian centers.
The banks already operating there help explain why the hub is gaining credibility. Business Standard said HSBC Holdings, Standard Chartered, and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group are among the institutions active in GIFT City. Their presence matters because large international banks do not usually build out offshore operations where they see no client demand or policy support. Their participation does not guarantee a straight path to regional dominance, but it does show that the site is not a paper concept.
The Bloomberg story framed GIFT City as competing with Singapore and Hong Kong for foreign capital. That comparison is ambitious, but it is also the right frame for investors. India is not trying to recreate a domestic banking center. It is trying to create an international gateway with enough scale and credibility to route capital flows that might otherwise go through rival jurisdictions. The fact that the comparison is now common in regional coverage says as much as the asset number itself.
Still, the competition is not symmetric. Singapore and Hong Kong have long-standing advantages in legal infrastructure, deep pools of international banking talent, and a track record that global allocators understand. GIFT City is trying to shorten that distance by offering a more workable structure for offshore business linked to India. The recent jump in bank assets suggests the model is finding buyers. Whether it can do so consistently, through different rate and policy cycles, is the bigger question.
This is also a story about the Indian state building a financial corridor around its own growth. Rajaraman said SEBI and IFSCA are working on a framework to allow Indian companies to tap global investors through dual listings in GIFT City. He also said, “Dual listing is certainly a goal.” That is a major policy signal, because dual listings would deepen the connection between India’s corporate sector and international capital markets without forcing everything through older offshore channels.
For investors, this matters because it expands the possible uses of the hub. Today the focus is on bank assets and funding. Tomorrow it could be equity access, corporate capital raising, and broader market intermediation. If that happens, GIFT City becomes not just a place for banks to book assets, but a more complete financial ecosystem. That is the kind of change regional markets watch closely, even if it takes time to translate into trading volume or index effects.
There is, however, a policy wrinkle that should not be ignored. Business Standard reported that the government and IFSCA are working together to ensure tax incentives for multinational companies are implemented, amid recent tax notices to some GIFT City investment funds for assessment years 2024-25 and 2025-26. That issue was attributed to a local media report and is not independently confirmed in the evidence pack, so it should be treated carefully. But the broader point is clear: the hub’s appeal depends not only on ambition, but on predictable treatment.
That is where many offshore centers win or lose investor trust. Incentives are helpful, but certainty is better. If multinational firms or investment funds begin to question whether the tax framework will be applied smoothly, the asset growth story could slow. For now, the headline growth suggests that market participants are still moving in. But the policy environment will decide whether those flows stay and deepen.
From a global investor’s point of view, the most interesting part of the GIFT City story is not the size of the number alone. It is the speed at which India is assembling an offshore finance channel that can absorb foreign currency deposits, external borrowings, and eventually perhaps dual-listed equity flows. English-language coverage can make this seem like a niche local development. In Asian financial media, it reads more like an infrastructure story: India is building another access point to its economy, and the first evidence is already showing up in bank assets.
The key takeaway is that GIFT City is moving from policy concept to measurable balance sheet. That does not mean it is ready to rival Singapore or Hong Kong on equal terms. But it does mean the market is no longer waiting for proof that the platform can grow. It already has. The real question now is whether India can keep the tax, regulatory, and market-structure pieces aligned long enough for the asset base to keep compounding.
