Photo of Ketaki Gor Mehta

Partner in the General Corporate Practice at the Gift City and Ahmedabad office of Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas. Ketaki advises on mergers & acquisitions, joint ventures, private equity, venture capital and angel investments, lending and financing transactions and other general corporate matters across all sectors and including cross border transactions. She can be reached at ketaki.mehta@cyrilshroff.com

FIG Paper

BACKGROUND

While the Reserve Bank of India (“RBI”) had in its August 10, 2022 press release stated that it is examining the First Loss Default Guarantee (“FLDG”) structures, the Digital Lending Guidelines issued by the RBI on September 2, 2022 neither permitted nor expressly prohibited loss sharing arrangements such as FLDGs, but recommended that provisions of paragraph 6(c) of the Reserve Bank of India (Securitisation of Standard Assets) Directions, 2021 dated September 24, 2021 (“Securitisation MD”) be adhered to for financial products involving contractual agreements such as FLDG. Paragraph 6(c) of Securitisation MD prohibits Regulated Entities (“RE”) from undertaking or assuming exposure under “synthetic securitisation” structures. This led to industry-wide confusion regarding the permissibility of loss sharing arrangements such as FLDG.Continue Reading FIG Paper (No.18 – Series 2) RBI’s New Default Loss Guarantee Guidelines: Late but Not lost

FIG Paper

Pursuant to the Report of the Reserve Bank of India (“RBI”) Working Group on Digital Lending, issued on November 18, 2021, and the RBI Press Release on ‘Recommendations of the Working Group on Digital Lending – Implementation’, dated August 10, 2022 (“August Press Release”), the RBI released the Guidelines on Digital Lending on September 2, 2022 (“Guidelines”). Our Alert examines the key changes introduced and industry implications.Continue Reading FIG Paper (No. 17 – Series 2) – New Digital Lending Guidelines – Industry Implications

Payment System Operators New M&A Implications

Background:

On July 4, 2022, the Reserve Bank of India (“RBI”) clarified to all banks and non-bank payment system operators (“PSOs”) that its prior approval would be required for any (a) takeover/ acquisition of control, which may or may not result in change of management; and (b) sale/ transfer of payment activity to an entity not authorised for undertaking similar activity (“Circular”).Continue Reading FIG Paper (No. 15 – Series 1) – Payment System Operators (PSOs) – New M&A Implications

GIFT City

Introduction

The onset of Global In-house Centres (“GICs”) in India was driven by global financial services companies seeking to drive costs down and access India’s large talent pool across various locations. These factors together made it a compelling case for GICs to invest in India to setup large centres which performed a variety of functions across technology, risk, AML, operations, research, credit analysis, etc., for a wide variety of businesses, from retail banking, wholesale banking to investment banking, located in various foreign countries. This model has been visibly successful in driving the upskilling of a large talent pool in India and enabling significant cost advantages to the financial services companies that have implemented this model.Continue Reading GICs in IFSC, GIFT City: A Combination to Unlock Value

Role of IFSC in the Indian SPAC Dream

In part 2 of this series of blogs (Key Features IFSC Lisiting Regulations in Relation to Listing of SPACs), we touched upon the newly-introduced framework for the issuance and listing of special purpose acquisition companies (“SPACs”) at the International Financial Services Centres (“IFSC”) under the International Financial Services Centres Authority (Issuance and Listing of Securities) Regulations, 2021 (“IFSC Listing Regulations”). In this part of the blog we are going to look at the IFSC Listing Regulations with a critical eye to detect the gaps that continue to exist despite the framework being put in place and identify areas that can be improved upon to leverage the unique status of entities in IFSC.Continue Reading Role of IFSC in the Indian SPAC Dream: An Overview – Part 3

Fintech Hubs in IFSC

The International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) had notified its Fintech Incentive Scheme on February 2, 2022 (Scheme), setting up a framework to provide six grants to eligible applicants. The six grants, thematically, are for ESG financing (Green FinTech Grant), meant to provide early-stage capital for scaling up (FinTech Start-up Grant, Proof-of-Concept Grant, Sandbox Grant, Listing Support Grant), and aimed at supporting third-party incubation (Accelerator Grant), with the common thread among all being an intent to facilitate market access.Continue Reading Policy support for fintech hubs in IFSCs

IFSC Banking Units – offshore branches with onshore dispute resolution

The Gujarat International Financial Tec-City (“GIFT”) in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, is India’s first operational greenfield smart city, housing a domestic tariff zone and an International Financial Services Centre (“IFSC”) in a Multi-service Special Economic Zone (“SEZ”). As part of developing India’s very own and first IFSC, both Indian and foreign banks are permitted to establish and operate IFSC Banking Units (“IBU”) from GIFT IFSC, upon obtaining the requisite licenses and permissions. The IBUs have the advantage or the ability to transact in freely convertible foreign currencies in the offshore markets, while being situated within the territorial borders of India. From 2015 to early 2020, the Reserve bank of India issued notifications and regulations related to the IFSC framework. Thereafter, on April 27, 2020, the International Financial Services Centres Authority Act, 2020, was notified, pursuant to which the International Financial Services Centres Authority (“IFSCA”) was established on October 1, 2020, as the unified regulator with wide powers to develop and regulate financial products, financial services, and financial institutions in IFSCs, including IBUs.Continue Reading IFSC Banking Units – offshore branches with onshore dispute resolution?

Aircraft Leasing in IFSC

In our previous post we had provided a synopsis of the legal framework relating to aircraft leasing in India and Indian IFSCs. In this piece, we will provide an overview of the tax incentives offered to the aircraft leasing activities undertaken from  IFSCs located in India to achieve the dream of developing the GIFT IFSC into a global aircraft leasing hub. We have provided  a few more thoughts to ponder upon as India fuels its engines to realise its objective of ‘letting the common citizen of the country fly’ (Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik).Continue Reading Part III (B): Aircraft Leasing in IFSC – Let’s kick the tires and light the fires!

Aircraft Leasing in IFSC

The Government of India (“GOI”) has, in the recent years, realised the importance of aircraft leasing activities in the global market and has made its intentions clear to promote aircraft leasing and financing activities in India’s first International Financial Services Centre (“IFSC”) situated in GIFT City, Gandhinagar. The aim is to bring the aircraft leasing business,  currently being carried out in countries that have established themselves in this sector such as Ireland, USA, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc[1], to the Indian shores. Leasing aircraft from abroad leads to incurring substantial liabilities payable in foreign currencies. Hedging currency fluctuations also becomes an additional cost for Indian airline operating companies. The above reasons highlight cost-inefficiencies and put into perspective how crucial it is to begin aircraft leasing and financing activities in India.Continue Reading Part III (A): Aircraft Leasing in IFSC – Let’s kick the tires and light the fires!

Role of IFSC in the Indian SPAC Dream: An Overview – Part 2

In part 1 of this series of blogs (Role of IFSC in Indian SPAC Dream- An Overview), we succinctly summarised the various dimensions of IFSCs, viz. their ‘foreign territory’ status in India, applicable laws and regulation and the development of regulatory regime for special purpose acquisition companies (“SPACs”) listings therein.Continue Reading Role of IFSC in the Indian SPAC Dream: An Overview – Part 2