The International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) hosted the Corporate Treasury Conference 2026 at GIFT City, bringing together over 250 participants from corporates, banks, and fintechs to discuss evolving global treasury practices. The conference highlighted GIFT-IFSC’s transformation into a global financial and treasury hub, supported by regulatory innovation, tax incentives, and operational flexibility. Key discussions focused on treasury governance, cross-border payment advancements, treasury centralisation, and the use of emerging technologies like AI and automation. The revised 2025 Treasury Centre framework, along with the Finance Bill 2026 tax amendments extending tax holidays and ensuring tax certainty, were emphasized as major enablers. Sessions also explored foreign currency settlement systems, liquidity optimisation, and digital payment infrastructure. Overall, the conference reinforced IFSCA’s commitment to building a globally competitive treasury ecosystem and positioning GIFT-IFSC as a strategic hub for international finance and corporate treasury operations.
International Financial Services Centres Authority
Press Release
IFSCA Corporate Treasury Conference – 2026 held on April 29-30, 2026
The International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) successfully hosted the IFSCA Corporate Treasury Conference 2026, on April 29-30, 2026, at GIFT City. The conference brought together a diverse array of over 250+ participants from treasury offices of corporates, banks and fintechs from India and across the globe, for focussed discussions on the evolving corporate treasury activities across the world especially in GIFT-IFSC.
Shri K. Rajaraman, Chairperson, IFSCA, in his keynote address set the strategic tone of the conference by tracing GIFT IFSC’s evolution from its original mandate of “onshoring the offshore” to becoming India’s gateway to global capital. He noted that since inception, IFSCA has been driven by a dual mandate: to regulate prudently and innovate purposefully, which has led to GIFT-IFSC emerge as a thriving international financial hub.
He noted key pillars like resilient domestic demand, fiscal consolidation, sustained public investment, infrastructure-led growth, digital public infrastructure, momentum in the manufacturing sector etc. suggest India’s medium-term outlook is solid, which aligns with the broader aspiration of building a productive, innovative, and inclusive economy in its journey towards a Viksit Bharat. He referred that IFSCA through its Ease of Doing approach has consistently endeavoured to place GIFT-IFSC as a platform to aid, assist and accelerate the Viksit Bharat engine by attracting foreign investment in India.
Chairperson, IFSCA, outlined the critical role of corporate treasurer amid the significant ongoing challenges such as market volatility, liquidity pressures, foreign exchange risks, cybersecurity issues etc. leading to increasingly global and complex financial landscape and mentioned that India’s response to overcome these challenges is reflected in the IFSCA’s Treasury Centre framework, which was substantially revised in 2025. Some important features of the IFSCA Treasury framework include –
- operational flexibility through wide range of permitted activities
- foreign currency orientation through transactions in 15 freely convertible foreign currencies.
- light touch yet robust regulatory approach
- strong tax and ecosystem advantages
Chairperson, IFSCA, highlighted the tax amendment introduced in The Finance Bill 2026, wherein the tax holiday period was extended to 20 consecutive years out of the block of 25 years of operations and the tax certainty of 15 percent thereafter on business income of IFSC units. He also mentioned that IFSCA is exploring to enable transactions in all freely convertible foreign currencies rather than 15 specified foreign currencies and inclusion of commodity trading in GIFT-IFSC as a permissible activity.
The conference featured focused deliberations including panel discussions and knowledge sharing sessions from globally reputed banks, MNCs, financial institutions, fintechs aimed at apprising the esteemed audience on the following topics –
1. GIFT IFSC: From Finance Hub to Treasury Hub focussed on a wide range of topics like requirement of capital account convertibility, internationalisation of INR, recent FEMA amendments, flexibility in treasury operations, expansion of permitted treasury activities, tax certainty, globally benchmarked regulations, transfer pricing, frictionless payments infrastructure, liquidity optimisation etc. which could contribute in making GIFT-IFSC emerge as a treasury hub for global corporates and MNCs.
2. Treasury Governance – Trends and Best practices was a thought-provoking panel discussion which deliberated upon key aspects such as the role of treasury governance in supporting business operations, formulation of robust treasury policies, implementation of effective internal controls, and management of exceptions and fraud risks. The discussion also highlighted the importance of adapting governance frameworks in line with evolving business dynamics and regulatory expectations and aligning with the adoption of policy focussed on training objectives.
3. Developments in cross-border payments aimed at bringing out the latest technological developments in the cross-border payments domain like tokenized deposits, stablecoins, multi-currency accounts, alternative payment collection rails, transparent settlement process enabled through APIs and other payment service infrastructure etc. for transparent settlement process and frictionless payments experience for the end-users and the use of same in bringing efficiency in treasury operations.
4. Experience sharing by Heads of Treasuries operating in GIFT-IFSC – The session had panel members representing the existing treasury centres set up in IFSC. During the session each of the panel members shared their motivations for setting up their treasury operations in GIFT-IFSC, current business operations in IFSC, regulatory support received from IFSCA and future plans for expanding their service offerings through GIFT-IFSC. The panel also highlighted how strategic planning can help in creating value for having two separate treasuries for the same entity and need for cash pooling to get the most out of the treasury operations.
5. Latest developments in Treasury technology – Having discussed technology developments in cross border payments, the panel aimed at deliberating on the treasury specific tools used/offered by their respective organisation. The panel also deliberated on areas relating to Treasury automation and straight-through processing (STP), use of AI in treasury management, advanced analytics in enhancing decision-making, efficiency, and risk management in Treasury Management.
Knowledge sharing sessions included –
1. IFSCA presented on GIFT IFSC: Opportunities for corporates, provided a brief highlight of various segments in IFSC and underscored how GIFT-IFSC is playing a pivotal role in creating opportunities for corporates to establish and scale treasury and financial activities in GIFT IFSC. The session was followed by an overview of the IFSCA Global Treasury Centres Framework, highlighting its regulatory design, key features, and opportunities for corporates to centralise and optimise treasury operations from GIFT IFSC.
2. The session on “Cash concentration across borders – Options for Indian Corporate Treasuries”, covered various key tools and strategies that corporates can employ for treasury efficiency, structures and the means to enabling business support.
3. Session on “Adopting Virtual accounts by Corporate Treasuries – Issues and Challenges” highlighted the concept of virtual accounts, various use-cases for corporate treasuries, current best practices, managing risks and challenges for better liquidity management, enhanced operational flexibility and other benefits
4. Followed by a session on “Centralisation of Treasury across the globe – Trends and Challenges”, wherein various aspects of starting the treasury centralisation project, enablers for centralisation, its drivers and associated structures, associated trade-offs, various tools for enhanced liquidity management were discussed.
5. The topic of “Optimising Treasury Operations through IFSC Structures”, provided corporates with factors for consideration for setting up their treasury operations in GIFT-IFSC, processes and checklists for treasury setup, foundation pillars for best-in-class global treasury centres etc. along with way forward.
6. In the end, a brief informative session on the Foreign Currency Settlement System (FCSS) was presented. FCSS, a RTGS-style inter-bank settlement mechanism within GIFT IFSC enables settlement of USD obligations among IBUs in approximately 6 seconds and is powered by ISO 20022 messaging along with Straight-Through Processing (STP) . The Authority’s earlier press release on FCSS may be seen at https://www.ccilindia.com/documents/43866/0/IFSCA+Press+Release.pdf/c70f2043-e8c7-bf30-7a7d-240059ee23e1?t=1759841894726
The two-day conference served as a high-level platform for dialogue, collaboration and innovation, reaffirming IFSCA’s commitment in shaping a world-class treasury ecosystem grounded in regulatory excellence and technological innovation that powers India’s ambitions, and elevates global standards. The suggestions made by the speakers are well received and will be forming the base for future enablement.
Gandhinagar
May 01, 2026
