India announced steps to deepen its foreign exchange market by allowing local residents trade currency derivatives contracts popular in the offshore market, according to the central bank. Local lenders with a so-called IFSC Banking Unit — basically having a unit in the International Financial Services Centre currently in GIFT City in the western state of Gujarat — will be permitted to offer non-deliverable forwards to residents onshore, Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das said in his policy speech Thursday. That will enable banks to offer enhanced currency hedging opportunities to their customers.
Banks were earlier allowed to trade such contracts with foreign entities and between themselves in the IFSC in 2020, according to the RBI. The current move widens it to include local players. The banks will have the flexibility of settling their transactions with non-residents and with each other in foreign currency or in rupees while transactions with residents will be mandatorily settled in rupees, the RBI said.
Non-deliverable forwards, or NDFs, are derivatives that allow investors hedge exposure to illiquid currencies by agreeing to settle the difference between contract prices and spot rates. They are usually executed offshore. In Asia, domestic NDFs, or DNDFs are only used in volume in Indonesia as a monetary policy tool, while secondary market trading is in the development stage, according to a IMF working paper. In the Philippines, the central bank maintains a little-used DNDF facility, it said.
The RBI unexpectedly left interest rates unchanged as the global banking crisis added uncertainty to its economic outlook, though it pledged to hike again if needed. The rupee was trading flat at 81.97 to a dollar after the RBI pause in rates.