JPMorgan UK unit to open branch in GIFT City for equities trading

By Saikat Das

 

A unit of JPMorgan Chase & Co. is setting up a branch in India’s Gujarat International Finance Tec-City, or GIFT City, to trade equities, among other instruments, becoming the latest global bank to take advantage of the country’s low-tax hub.

 

“The branch will facilitate the trading of equities, derivatives and other financial instruments,” a spokesperson from JPMorgan said in response to a query from Bloomberg News. She said London-based JPMorgan Securities Plc had received a license from International Financial Services Centres Authority, or IFSCA, the hub’s regulator, to set up a banking unit in the center.

 

 

Dipesh Shah, executive director at IFSCA, confirmed that the regulator had issued a license to JPMorgan Securities earlier this month.

 

JPMorgan’s move underscores how Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet project in western India is gaining traction among global banks and other firms. HSBC Holdings Plc, Standard Chartered Plc and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc have build huge businesses in GIFT City, with other Asian lenders joining them. More than 190 fund management entities have established offices there, along with universities, insurers and tech firms.

 

JPMorgan had set up a unit in Gift City in 2024 to develop derivative products, while the US bank’s Indian unit opened a branch in the hub in 2022. The latest move will allow JPMorgan to trade financial instruments for clients based outside India.

 

Gift City is seeking to become an international trading and lending hub, capturing market share from well established centers such as Singapore, Hong Kong or Dubai. It offers an array of incentives, including a 100% tax holiday for a decade to businesses.

 

Bank assets in the hub, which was set up a decade ago, totaled more than $100 billion as of September 2025, up 41% from a year earlier, and more than doubling from April 2023. Still, the center hasn’t taken off as a residential place, with most of the 28,000 people working in GIFT City staying in the nearby cities of Ahmedabad and Gandhinagar.