Standard Chartered Bank, CCIL IFSC Ltd and IFSCA to launch real-time dollar settlement platform

“Amongst banks in GIFT City, there is a clearing mechanism that is being set up by CCIL, which will allow (real-time) dollar-denominated trades clearing within the GIFT City,” P D Singh, chief executive officer (CEO) India and South Asia, Standard Chartered Bank told reporters. The platform is likely to be launched on October 7, he said.

The platform will facilitate the real-time settlement of dollar-denominated trades in the GIFT City. Currently, settlement of US dollar-denominated trades takes a few hours.

With this launch, the entire dollar clearing activities in the Gift City will move to this platform. All lenders in the country – domestic as well as foreign banks would become members of the platform, Singh said. Many banks have already signed up, and more are expected to come on board once the platform goes live.

Speaking about the outlook on the Indian economy, he said that the country is currently facing a period of uncertainty. He also expressed hope that the US tariff issue will be resolved soon. The US imposed a steep 50 per cent tariffs on Indian goods exports to America from August 27. Both countries are currently engaged in negotiations to sign a trade deal.

“If tariffs remain where they are today, the impact on the GDP would be 0.6 to 0.7 percent. There have been various countermeasures that have been taken. The latest GST cut, (income) tax cuts and the (repo) rate cuts are all going to add back a similar number to that,” Singh said.

In future, whenever the eighth pay commission is implemented, it will add 100 basis points to GDP. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has projected GDP to grow at 6.5 per cent in the current fiscal.

On outflows from foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) from the domestic market, Singh noted that the trend is similar in all emerging markets such as China, Korea and others. According to him, robust corporate earnings are likely to trigger FPIs inflows back into the country.

Singh, who was appointed as the Standard Chartered Bank’s CEO in April this year, further said that the lender’s strategy is to move to a multi-product relationship with clients in the wealth and retail banking segments.