- Senior HSBC and Visa executives highlighted GIFT City’s role in expanding foreign currency access for Indians
- HSBC enables customers to hold foreign currency and make faster international payments via digital platforms
- Visa is enhancing cross-border payments with products like Visa Direct and Currencycloud at GIFT City
Senior executives from HSBC India and Visa said GIFT City is emerging as a key opportunity to offer Indian customers greater access to foreign currency and international financial products from within India, at the 'Global Connect GIFT City' event on Tuesday.
Deepthi Sirvuri, head of cards and retail lending at HSBC India, said the International Financial Services Centre at GIFT City can help address financial needs that currently require customers to look outside India.
HSBC has made progress across its corporate and consumer businesses in enabling customers to access foreign currency and hold funds without taking on exchange-rate risk, Sirvuri said.
Most customers using these services are non-resident Indians or Indians seeking exposure to overseas assets. Digital platforms have also significantly reduced the time taken for international payments, she said.
Payments that earlier took one to two weeks to be confirmed by companies or universities can now be completed and confirmed on the same day, including payments made for children studying overseas.
The next opportunity for HSBC is to give customers access to and the ability to hold foreign currency through GIFT City, allowing more of their international financial requirements to be managed from India.
Rishi Chhabra, country head at Visa India, said India has made significant progress in domestic payments, particularly through its real-time payment infrastructure, but cross-border payments remain more complex.
Visa processes payments across around 200 countries and is working to make international payments more seamless, secure, instantaneous and cost-efficient, Chhabra said.
Visa has products such as Visa Direct, which enables account-to-card and account-to-account transfers, as well as Currencycloud, which allows customers to hold balances, fund wallets and make payouts while managing currency conversion.
The company is also looking at bringing its broader range of products and value-added services to GIFT City, including its card issuing and acceptance capabilities, Visa Direct and Currencycloud.
Visa is exploring services such as card management systems and technology infrastructure for running cards and loans from GIFT City, Chhabra said.
Visa's offering extends beyond its role as a global card network, with several ancillary and value-added services that could potentially be offered through GIFT City, he said.
For HSBC, one of the key advantages of GIFT City is that customers can hold foreign currency in India. This can allow customers to meet a range of overseas financial requirements without having to establish a presence in another jurisdiction, Sirvuri said.
The opportunity extends to both resident Indians and NRIs, with GIFT City offering a jurisdiction closer to home and access to Indian banking expertise, Chhabra said.
Customers could use GIFT City to build assets in foreign currencies for future requirements such as overseas education, while NRIs could use the platform to maintain exposure to India and manage assets in different currencies.
The cost of international transfers has two components — the bank's service charge and the foreign-exchange spread. For HSBC customers, transfers through its app do not carry a separate transfer fee, while the applicable exchange-rate spread is displayed before the transaction is completed, Sirvuri said.
The ability to hold foreign currency through GIFT City can also reduce the need for repeated currency conversion, potentially lowering the overall cost for customers.
HSBC is seeing significant interest from customers looking to hold foreign-currency funds closer to home, Sirvuri said. These include global travellers, NRIs and Indians planning to spend or invest overseas.
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The framework at GIFT City could also allow banks to develop card-linked products backed by deposits held in different currencies. Customers travelling overseas could potentially use such cards without having to obtain a separate forex card or repeatedly convert unused foreign currency after returning to India.
The broader proposition is to allow global Indians to access international financial products while remaining within India's financial ecosystem, Sirvuri said.
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