According to The Economic Times, Indian Bank has successfully completed its $400 million overseas fundraising programme through its GIFT City branch for a four-year tenure. The state-owned lender announced the completion of this overseas funding programme on Wednesday, joining other Indian banks in accelerating dollar bond issuances following regulatory changes to the concessional swap window for FCNR deposits. The bank had initially planned to raise this amount through External Commercial Borrowings (ECB) this week to support its business growth, with MD and CEO Binod Kumar confirming the overseas fund raise would come at a very competitive rate.
As reported by The Hindu BusinessLine, Business Standard, Rediff Moneynews, and NDTV, the public sector lender is planning to garner $1 billion from ECBs and $2 billion via Foreign Currency Non-Resident (Bank) or FCNR(B) deposits. According to Kumar, the bank has already raised $1.5 billion from FCNR(B) deposits and has seen good demand from NRIs willing to put their money in such products as it provides attractive returns. The bank hopes to touch $2 billion in total FCNR(B) deposits. Better than expected FCNR(B) flows have been there, which is why the RBI halted the concessional swap facility much ahead of the scheduled deadline of September 30, 2026.
According to The Hindu BusinessLine, Business Standard, Rediff Moneynews, and NDTV, the Reserve Bank of India has already closed its concessional swap facility early due to better than expected FCNR(B) flows. On Friday, the RBI prematurely closed the window for mobilising FCNR(B) deposits under its special USD-INR forex swap facility citing encouraging response and strong forex inflows generated through the scheme. As per RBI data, FCNR(B) has attracted $52.3 billion from overseas customers, while Overseas Foreign Currency Borrowings (OFCBs) contributed $2.81 billion and ECBs $1.74 billion till August 13. The RBI introduced the special USD-INR forex swap facility on June 8, covering FCNR(B) deposits with a deadline of September 30, while December 31 for ECBs and OFCBs.
As reported by The Economic Times, banks are fast-tracking their dollar bond and overseas fund raising plans following the regulatory decision to advance the closure of the concessional swap window for foreign currency non resident deposits. Axis Bank and ICICI Bank have raised over $1 billion between them, while Federal Bank, IDFC First Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Yes Bank are on course to tap the overseas markets. The accelerated fundraising comes as the scheme for overseas borrowing will continue to be open till December 31, 2026, as announced earlier, providing banks with alternative funding avenues despite the closure of the concessional swap facility.
