GIFT City’s investment tourism proposition is beginning to take shape around a simple but consequential idea: the financial hub should not only help Indian residents access global markets, but also bring international investors into India. Executives from India INX and ViewTrade Holding Corporation say clearer rules on KYC, equity listings and dual listings could determine whether GIFT International Financial Services Centre becomes a genuinely two-way gateway for capital.
That ambition would give GIFT City a role larger than that of a specialised offshore-style financial centre. It would position the Gujarat development as an institutional bridge between Indian investors, overseas securities, global financial firms and foreign capital seeking exposure to India. The opportunity is being described by ViewTrade chairman and CEO Tony Petrilli as “investment tourism” — a phrase that captures the attempt to make cross-border investing easier to access through an India-based, regulated ecosystem.
The proposition is still developing. The executives expect greater clarity on several policy issues over the next three to six months, while India INX managing director and CEO Vijay Krishnamurthy sees the scale of the opportunity expanding over the next three to five years. The timeline matters because GIFT City’s success will depend not only on attracting financial firms, but also on whether its rules, technology and compliance systems can make two-way investment flows routine.
## From outbound access to a two-way financial gateway
GIFT City’s initial value proposition for Indian investors has been access to global securities through an India-based platform. India INX operates Global Access, which enables investors in India to access international markets through GIFT City. ViewTrade provides technology and market infrastructure for cross-border investing and works on a business-to-business basis with financial institutions.
Petrilli said clients outside India are also interested in India and that GIFT City could provide a route into the Indian market. His argument rests on the country’s economic momentum and on the willingness of international investors to participate in places where wealth and new business opportunities are being created. In this model, GIFT City is not merely processing money moving out of India. It is also intended to serve as a channel through which global investors can participate in India’s growth.
Krishnamurthy described the objective as making GIFT IFSC a true international jurisdiction in which inbound and outbound investment happen together. That framing is important for the city’s institutional development. A financial centre that mainly helps domestic investors diversify abroad has a different economic function from one that also attracts foreign investors, hosts financial intermediaries and supports transactions connected to Indian companies and markets.
The report does not establish that the two-way model has reached maturity. Instead, it shows that the infrastructure and market interest are being assembled. The executives point to growing account openings, continuing investment in local teams and ongoing discussions around policy changes. Those developments indicate momentum, but they do not yet demonstrate the final scale of inbound investment or the extent to which international investors are using GIFT City to access India.
## The regulatory design is the product
The most important feature of the model may not be the trading interface. It is the location and legal framework of the account itself. Petrilli said ViewTrade spent five years working with regulators and exchanges to understand how cross-border business could be offered from India. Under the model described in the report, an Indian resident can open an account in India under Indian and International Financial Services Centres Authority rules and use it to trade global stocks.
That arrangement is intended to address two concerns that have traditionally shaped cross-border investing: trust and accountability. Petrilli contrasted an India-based account with an account opened directly in the United States, where an Indian resident may not have the same practical access to the foreign legal system. Krishnamurthy said earlier access to overseas opportunities was constrained by limited awareness and concerns about where money and securities were held.
The GIFT ecosystem is being presented as a way to keep the regulated entity, the account relationship and supporting institutional capacity closer to the Indian investor. That does not remove the complexity of cross-border investing, but it changes how the service is organised. Exchanges, regulators, banks, technology providers and financial institutions have to operate as a connected system so that the experience appears simple to the customer.
This is where GIFT City’s urban and institutional infrastructure becomes relevant. A financial district is not created only through buildings, offices and connectivity. It also requires a dense network of specialised firms, compliance professionals, technology systems and regulatory processes. ViewTrade said it has established a 70- to 80-person team in GIFT City and is continuing to expand. The company’s local presence includes people involved in opening accounts, trading and moving money through those accounts.
That investment is significant because it suggests that the city’s competitive offer depends on operational capacity as much as on formal policy. The firm has built new infrastructure, an organisation and a technology stack in GIFT City rather than simply relying on its existing scale elsewhere. Its assessment is that the local investment can make the process more efficient for end customers. For GIFT City, each such institutional commitment helps turn the district from a planned financial zone into a functioning financial ecosystem.
## KYC and listings remain critical bottlenecks
The next stage of growth will depend on the parts of the system that are less visible to investors. Krishnamurthy identified KYC as one of the key issues requiring resolution. Video KYC has progressed for certain jurisdictions and categories of investors, but he said several processes still need to be eased.
This is not a minor administrative detail. KYC determines how quickly and smoothly investors can enter the system, which documents they must provide and how financial institutions manage compliance across jurisdictions. If the process remains cumbersome or differs significantly by investor type and market, the promise of frictionless access will be difficult to deliver at scale.
Equity listings and dual listings are another unresolved area. Krishnamurthy said there is ongoing activity around these issues and that greater policy clarity could emerge within three to six months. The executives are already speaking with startups, unlisted companies and merchant bankers. The expectation is that clearer rules could expand the range of companies and securities connected to the GIFT ecosystem.
Yet the report also indicates that the regulatory framework is not simply a copy of the domestic system. Krishnamurthy said there are areas in which requirements are lighter than under the domestic framework. That may help GIFT City compete for cross-border activity, but it also places greater importance on clarity about the precise rules, investor protections and responsibilities that apply within the international financial centre.
The success of the platform will therefore be measured not only by the number of accounts opened. It will also depend on whether investors, companies and intermediaries understand the rules well enough to use the system confidently. In financial infrastructure, regulatory certainty is itself a form of urban economic infrastructure: without it, physical offices and digital platforms cannot generate sustained activity.
## Diversification, not simply capital flight
One of the central questions around easier access to overseas markets is whether it will accelerate the movement of Indian savings abroad. Krishnamurthy rejected what he called a misconception that money moving through GIFT City necessarily represents a shift from Indian securities to global securities.
His argument is that Indian investors may use international assets for diversification, future expenses in foreign currency and protection against currency fluctuations. He cited overseas education as one example in which families may accumulate foreign-currency assets over time. He also said Indian investors could consider allocating one to three per cent of a portfolio overseas, depending on risk appetite, while continuing to invest in Indian securities.
The report does not provide market-wide data to establish how much money is currently moving through this channel or what proportion is being allocated abroad. But the distinction between diversification and capital flight is central to GIFT City’s policy narrative. The financial centre is being presented as a regulated mechanism for expanding investor choice, not as an alternative to India’s domestic securities market.
That distinction also reflects a broader change in how financial access is organised. Investors can increasingly reach markets across jurisdictions through digital platforms, payment systems and intermediaries. GIFT City’s task is to bring those connections into a framework that is based in India and supported by Indian regulation, while also making the platform attractive to institutions and investors outside the country.
## The city’s next growth phase will test institutional depth
GIFT City’s next phase will be less about announcing the possibility of global access and more about proving that the ecosystem can handle it consistently. The city will need financial institutions, technology providers, banks, exchanges, regulators and professional services firms to work together across a larger volume of accounts and transactions.
Krishnamurthy described India INX as operating in a startup-like environment in which an international financial centre is being developed alongside its policy framework. He expects the scale to be substantially larger over the next three to five years and wants GIFT IFSC to support new products for both inbound and outbound investors.
That growth will create demands beyond financial regulation. It will require specialist employment, reliable digital systems, secure data and transaction infrastructure, and a business environment capable of retaining firms that can operate across jurisdictions. The report offers evidence of early institutional expansion through ViewTrade’s local workforce, but it does not provide aggregate employment, transaction-volume or investment figures for GIFT City.
The larger urban question is whether GIFT City can convert regulatory advantage into durable economic depth. Planned financial districts often begin with land, buildings and incentives. Their long-term viability depends on whether firms find enough value in being physically and institutionally close to one another. In GIFT City’s case, the claimed value lies in combining Indian jurisdiction, international market access, technology and regulatory coordination.
The emerging investment tourism model therefore represents both an opportunity and a test. It could make GIFT City more relevant to Indian households seeking global diversification, foreign investors seeking India exposure, startups considering listings and financial firms building cross-border services. But its expansion remains tied to unresolved questions around KYC, listings and dual listings.
What the available evidence confirms is that GIFT City is moving towards a two-way capital model and that private firms are building teams and systems around it. What remains uncertain is the eventual scale of inbound investment, the speed at which regulatory clarity will arrive and whether the platform can make cross-border investing genuinely routine. Those are the milestones that will determine whether “investment tourism” becomes a durable function of GIFT City or remains an attractive description of an ambition still under construction.
