Gandhinagar (Gujarat) [India], September 17 : GIFT City has climbed nine places to rank 37th globally in the latest Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI 40), while entering the top 15 financial centres in the Asia-Pacific region, according to a media release.
GIFT City, which was ranked 46th in GFCI 39, is now the only Indian financial centre among the top 15 in the Asia-Pacific region, the release said.
The latest ranking also placed GIFT City 26th globally in FinTech, up three places from 29th in the previous edition. The GFCI assesses 115 financial centres and considers factors including FinTech capabilities, access to finance, skilled talent, regulatory environment and ICT infrastructure.
GFCI 40 has also featured GIFT City among the 15 centres expected to become more significant over the next two to three years, based on mentions by respondents to the GFCI survey.
The release said the improvement in GIFT City’s overall and FinTech rankings reflects the continued expansion of its financial services ecosystem and the closer integration of finance, technology and innovation.
GIFT City further said it will focus on deepening market participation, strengthening international connectivity and building capabilities to support increasingly sophisticated cross-border financial activity.
The GFCI report identified digital infrastructure, including cloud services, data connectivity and cybersecurity resilience, as priority areas for financial centres over the next five years. It also highlighted attracting FinTech and digital asset businesses, strengthening anti-money laundering and financial crime frameworks, and deepening capital markets.
The latest GFCI edition is based on 144 instrumental factors, 39,531 assessments and responses from 6,147 participants to the GFCI online questionnaire, the release said.
GIFT City is India’s maiden International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) and is positioned as a financial and IT services hub for global and domestic companies across banking, financial services, insurance, IT/ITeS, FinTech and other service sectors.