GIFT City has successfully transformed its investor onboarding process, reducing completion time from 20-30 days to approximately 60 minutes. According to Dipesh Shah, Executive Director at International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA), this significant improvement was announced on the inaugural day of the Global Fintech Fest 2026 in Mumbai on Wednesday. The transformation has attracted 16,000 global investors who are already participating in alternative investment funds (AIFs) in GIFT City.
The new digital journey enables overseas investors to complete the entire process online without traditional barriers. As reported by Shah, the system allows investors to fill online applications that are digitally routed to notaries in their country of residence. The documents can then be e-notarised and e-apostilled, followed by cloud-based digital signature before submission to IFSCA. This streamlined approach eliminates previous challenges including IP address restrictions, physical documentation requirements, consular attestations, and apostille requirements that previously added friction to the onboarding process.
The digital transformation is already showing measurable results in attracting international participation. According to Shah's announcement, investors from 90 countries have been successfully onboarded in GIFT City. The unified regulator has specifically focused on streamlining the onboarding journey for non-resident Indians and foreign investors who typically do not possess Aadhaar cards, addressing previous barriers in the process.
Waterfield Advisors has launched two GIFT City funds to provide Indian investors with structured access to global markets. According to Soumya Rajan, founder and CEO of Waterfield Advisors, the funds were launched in response to clients seeking access to global markets while retaining a structured investment and governance framework. Riddhiman Jain, managing director and head of investment strategy and solutions at Waterfield Advisors, said the funds are intended to provide Indian investors with access to global diversification through a structured investment vehicle. These funds offer an alternative approach to the Reserve Bank of India's Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS), which allows individuals to remit up to $250,000 per financial year subject to applicable regulations.
A new DSP Gift City report titled 'The Other 97%' highlights significant opportunities that Indian investors may be missing by limiting portfolios to domestic equities. According to the report, India accounts for roughly 3% of global stock markets, while the US makes up nearly 64% of the MSCI All Country World Index. The remaining markets account for about 33% of the world's total market capitalisation, meaning investors who focus only on Indian equities are accessing just a fraction of global opportunities. The report notes that some defining businesses of the next few decades don't trade on Indian exchanges, including semiconductor companies like Nvidia, AMD, TSMC and Samsung, and global technology platforms such as Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon.
