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CapitalVia Research Desk ·
Data story · 30 Oct 2026
Corporate borrowing · RBI data, August 2026
Indian companies borrowed $8.1 billion abroad in August. Nearly half came from GIFT City.
"Foreign" loans are increasingly being written inside India — by lenders in the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) at GIFT City, Gujarat, which counts as offshore under India's foreign-exchange rules.
$8.1 bn
Foreign-currency loans (ECBs) registered by 144 Indian companies with RBI in August 2026 — the highest of the last 14 months.
Aug 2025 $3.3 bn
Up 2.5× in a year
Fourteen months of borrowing abroad
ECB / FCCB registrations, US$ billion, by month
20252026
Who lent the $8.1 billion
Share of August 2026 registrations, by lender type
Lenders in GIFT City's IFSC$3.91 bn · 48.1%
Foreign parent / shareholder$1.46 bn · 18.0%
Indian banks' branches abroad$1.00 bn · 12.3%
Multilateral lenders$0.57 bn · 7.0%
All other lender types$1.18 bn · 14.5%
Not a one-off
51%
Since March 2026, lenders in GIFT City's IFSC have written $18.1 billion of the $35.8 billion Indian companies registered — more than every other lender type put together.
50%Mar
73%Apr
70%May
40%Jun
39%Jul
48%Aug
IFSC lenders' share of each month's registrations
The outlier
One loan was 14% of the month
Flipkart Internet registered $1.14 billion from its foreign shareholder, for lending on within the group. The ten largest loans took two-thirds of the total; the typical (median) loan was just $3.2 million.
Flipkart — $1.14 bn (14.0%)
Next 9 largest — $4.28 bn (52.7%)
Other 134 loans — $2.71 bn (33.3%)
Founders
Your foreign investors can be your lenders too: 77 of the 144 loans came from overseas shareholders. Leave out Flipkart and the typical one was about $1 million; 39 were for working capital.
Business leaders
The biggest source of foreign-currency credit is now GIFT City — 25 loans worth $3.9 bn, to borrowers including Power Finance Corporation, REC and Reliance Industries.
Salaried employees
32% ($2.6 bn) was raised to be lent on — by finance companies such as Tata Capital and Piramal Finance, and by state lenders like NaBFID and Exim Bank.
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