SAIL and Zydus Group’s applications to establish global treasury centres at GIFT City show how Gujarat’s International Financial Services Centre is moving beyond a cluster of banks, funds and financial intermediaries. The new applicants are seeking to centralise group-level finance inside India’s international financial jurisdiction, using a framework designed to manage liquidity, foreign exchange, borrowing and risk across corporate entities.
The proposals have been made by SAIL Global IFSC and Zydus Global Treasury Centre IFSC under the Global/Regional Corporate Treasury Centre framework. SAIL has proposed a 446-square-metre office on the sixth floor of Rajyash One, with an initial workforce of nine employees. Zydus has proposed a 315-square-metre office on the 18th floor of FlexOne. The applications do not by themselves establish that the entities have begun operations or received final approval.
Their significance lies in the type of activity being located at GIFT City. A global or regional treasury centre functions as an in-house bank for a corporate group. It can coordinate intra-group lending and borrowing, manage cash and liquidity, deploy surplus funds, conduct foreign-exchange transactions and hedge financial risks, subject to the applicable regulatory framework.
For large groups with subsidiaries, projects and financing exposures in multiple jurisdictions, these functions are often distributed across different entities and locations. A treasury centre creates a dedicated institutional platform for managing those activities. In the GIFT IFSC model, the platform remains within India while being authorised to handle international financial operations under the International Financial Services Centres Authority’s framework.
The expansion is therefore not only a story about two new office applications. It is also an indicator of how GIFT City is attempting to capture a higher-value layer of corporate decision-making. The physical footprint of the proposed offices is relatively modest, but the activities they are intended to coordinate can extend across large corporate balance sheets and overseas operations.
The framework was introduced by IFSCA in June 2021 and revised in April 2025. The revised rules allow treasury centres to be established either as subsidiaries or as branches of companies incorporated in India or overseas. They also provide for a minimum owned-fund requirement of $200,000. In the case of a finance unit, that requirement can be maintained at the parent-entity level.
This structure gives corporate groups more than one route into the IFSC. A group can establish a separate subsidiary or use a branch-based model, depending on its organisational and regulatory requirements. The framework’s design recognises that treasury operations are not identical to conventional lending businesses: they are primarily concerned with managing the financial position of related companies rather than serving an open retail or commercial customer base.
The list of companies associated with the ecosystem indicates that interest is spreading across sectors. Entities linked to Indian Oil Corporation, ONGC Videsh, GAIL, ArcelorMittal-Nippon Steel, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, Adani Energy Solutions, Welspun, Synechron, JLL, ReNew and Continuum Green Energy have established or pursued treasury operations in the IFSC. SAIL and Zydus add steel and pharmaceuticals to an expanding mix that already includes energy, infrastructure, real estate, technology and industrial businesses.
Adani Airports Holdings had also approached IFSCA to establish a global treasury centre through its wholly owned subsidiary, AAHL Global IFSC. The proposed entity would be the second Adani Group company to pursue the IFSC route, after ATSOL Global IFSC, associated with Adani Energy Solutions. Adani Airports proposed an initial office space of 7.43 square metres and a workforce of two employees, with funding through capital infusion from its parent company.
These office and staffing details reveal an important feature of treasury-centre operations: their economic footprint cannot be measured by headcount alone. A small team may coordinate funding, liquidity and risk management for a much larger group. At the same time, the limited initial employment attached to some proposals means that the direct jobs created may be relatively small compared with the financial flows and institutional functions being located there.
The available business-volume data points to rapid expansion. Loans and advances by treasury centres in GIFT IFSC stood at $6.54 billion in June 2026, compared with $2.73 billion in June 2025. That represents an increase of about 140 per cent in one year. Investments rose to $495.77 million from $78.31 million over the same period.
The increase in loans and advances suggests that treasury centres are becoming more active in deploying or coordinating corporate funds within the IFSC framework. The rise in investments is even more pronounced in absolute terms, although the supplied figures do not identify the instruments, counterparties or individual entities responsible for the increase. The data therefore demonstrates growing activity but does not, by itself, establish how evenly that activity is distributed across the ecosystem.
That distinction matters for understanding GIFT City’s development. An international financial centre is not built only through office towers or the presence of financial companies. Its depth depends on whether institutions conduct substantive financial functions, generate recurring transactions and create links between domestic corporate groups and international markets. Treasury centres are relevant to that objective because they sit close to the internal financing systems of large companies.
The policy architecture is central to this transition. IFSCA’s role is to regulate and develop financial products, financial services and financial institutions in the IFSC. The treasury-centre framework provides the regulatory channel through which corporate groups can bring group-level financial management into GIFT City. The framework’s rules on entity form, permitted activities and capital requirements establish the boundaries within which those operations can grow.
For companies, the attraction described in the supplied report is operational consolidation. Cross-border financing, cash management, foreign exchange and hedging can otherwise be spread across multiple jurisdictions and corporate entities. A dedicated IFSC treasury centre offers a single location from which these functions can be managed, while remaining connected to the wider group.
For GIFT City, the attraction is institutional density rather than simply occupied floor space. Each new treasury centre adds another corporate relationship to the IFSC and potentially increases demand for associated legal, accounting, compliance, banking and risk-management services. The report does not quantify those spillovers, so their scale remains unestablished. But the composition of applicants suggests that the framework is being tested by operating companies with complex financing requirements, not only by specialist financial firms.
The data also shows the limits of a simple real-estate reading of GIFT City. SAIL’s proposed office and Zydus’s proposed office occupy hundreds of square metres, while Adani Airports’ proposed space is much smaller. Yet the proposed activities concern financial flows that can be considerably larger than the physical premises. This is a model in which the value of urban infrastructure is tied to regulatory access, digital connectivity and institutional capability as much as to floor area.
The wider urban question is whether GIFT City can convert this growing pipeline of applications into durable financial activity. Applications, established entities and operational volumes are different stages of development. The supplied material confirms that companies are seeking access to the framework and that loans, advances and investments associated with treasury centres have increased. It does not establish the final approval status, operating performance or long-term employment impact of each applicant.
What is clear is that GIFT City’s corporate proposition is broadening. SAIL and Zydus are not entering as conventional office occupiers; they are seeking a regulated platform for managing international corporate finance. The rise from $2.73 billion to $6.54 billion in loans and advances between June 2025 and June 2026 provides a measurable sign of expansion, while the increase in investments from $78.31 million to $495.77 million indicates a parallel rise in financial activity.
The next phase will depend on how these applications progress, how many proposed centres become fully operational and whether the expanding ecosystem develops deeper links with the corporate groups it serves. For now, the evidence points to GIFT City becoming a more important domestic base for managing cross-border corporate finance, with treasury operations emerging as one of the clearest bridges between India’s large industrial groups and its international financial ambitions.
