There appears to be a trend of firms setting up in the GIFT City hub in India, a centre designed to compete in certain ways with locations such as Singapore and the UAE.

Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC) is starting operations at the new GIFT City financial hub in India – a centre vying to compete with other centres.

The bank’s new GIFT City branch will focus on the foreign currency-denominated lending business, SMBC said in a statement yesterday. 

SMBC now has four branches in India – New Dehli, Mumbai, Chennai and now GIFT City, aka Gujarat International Finance Tec-City.

Several financial institutions have set up in GIFT City, such as Vistra, the provider of advisory and administrative support to private wealth, capital market, corporate and fund clients. A few days ago, reports said HSBC plans to offer dollar-denominated products to non-residents from the hub. 

Plans to create the GIFT City hub go back more than a decade.