Michael Syn, President of SGX Group (Singapore Exchange), sees a historic moment unfolding in India’s financial markets. With GIFT City emerging as an international-first hub and Mumbai operating as a highly liquid domestic powerhouse, he believes that carefully integrating the two centres could create a market of unprecedented scale, liquidity, and international connectivity — one capable of attracting global capital and serving a vast arc extending from Eastern and Northern Africa, the Gulf to the Indian subcontinent, where other financial hubs have struggled to establish depth and activity.
In an exclusive interview with businessline during his recent visit to GIFT City, Syn said SGX, being an early and enthusiastic partner in India’s markets, aims to actively participate in shaping the country’s future as a global financial hub.
How is India positioned in the global context when it comes to attracting international capital?
India has a clear long-term advantage. Today, India’s market is split into two complementary pieces — the highly liquid domestic market, and GIFT City, which is an international-first, unified-regulator hub and highly interoperable with global markets. If, over time, these two centres are carefully brought closer together, the combined liquidity and international connectivity can become a very powerful locus of attention for global capital.
Structurally, India’s growth rate is high enough that by 2030 it will be the world’s third-largest economy. It is already the world’s most populous. Demographics are very powerful, and in the current environment of trade shifts and geopolitical realignment, India is a net beneficiary of many of these changes. India is also becoming increasingly important within emerging markets indices.
The next stage of development is to leverage this market power to create a wider sphere of influence. Around the region, others are trying to replicate this strategy by trying to capture regional capital flows and position themselves as hubs. India already has scale, liquidity and investor participation. The opportunity now is to think beyond domestic strength and shape a broader regional and global role for its capital markets. We at SGX have been one of the earliest and most enthusiastic participants in India’s growth story. We launched the SGX Nifty 50 back in 2000 — so what looks like an “overnight success” is actually 26 years old. It’s the same team in Singapore that has watched this big country grow over a quarter century
Why do you believe India stands to benefit in a world that is becoming more fragmented?
In a fragmenting world, we believe there is a huge time zone and geography that requires a new financial centre — almost a new World Trade Center. If you look at the arc covering Eastern and North Africa, Turkey, the Gulf, and the Indian subcontinent, this is one of the most exciting zones in terms of demographics and economic growth in the new world order. Yet, it does not have a single, dominant financial centre serving its needs in a comprehensive way.
Take commodities as an example. Much of the world’s most important crude oil comes from this region, yet benchmark pricing still happens in London on Brent or in the US on WTI and liquidity remains fragmented. And oil is just one example — imagine the many economic factors that need transparent pricing and market structures. India has the regulatory depth, market experience, and scale to address this broader opportunity. We see ourselves as part of that journey.
How has the migration of SGX Nifty to GIFT Nifty impacted international participation and liquidity?
Leading up to the launch, international participants weren’t used to something as complex as this. They’d seen stock connects before — Shanghai, Hong Kong — but a derivatives connect with GIFT Cty was much more advanced. There has only been one similar model in the world: the Chicago–Singapore “Mutual Offset,” connect which was launched in 1984 in the era of open outcry before electronic trading. That 24-hour link between Singapore and Chicago ultimately won the global interest rate derivatives market. We applied that playbook carefully with GIFT Connect, working closely with NSE, IFSC authorities and the Indian government. The supervision from the top levels, including the Prime Minister, ensured a smooth cutover.
The results speak for themselves. GIFT Connect launched with $10 billion in open interest, and three years later it has grown to $20 billion. This demonstrates that, with the right infrastructure and regulatory support, India can successfully integrate domestic derivatives with global investors. It’s a long journey, but just like Chicago and Singapore did 40 years ago, this platform shows how international participation can be built steadily over time, creating a more liquid and globally connected market.
There’s a perception that 70–80% of GIFT Nifty volumes come from Singapore. How should we interpret this?
That’s correct for today, but it’s important to see the bigger picture. The purpose of GIFT City is to bring international investments into India — it’s a gateway. Naturally, initial participation comes from Singapore through SGX, but if you look at the Indian market in Mumbai, its volume is about a thousand times bigger. So today’s numbers are just a temporary staging point.
The real opportunity is to integrate these two liquidity pools — domestic and international — so investors can interact with all this tremendous liquidity in India. The focus shouldn’t be on where the current volume comes from, but on how to increase investor participation from both sides. GIFT’s design is deliberately open — no fortress, no veil — providing a controlled interface between domestic and international markets. As regulations and mechanisms evolve, Indian liquidity can start participating more actively in GIFT, creating a much larger, bilateral market. That’s the ambition and the long-term mission for India’s International Financial Services Centre.
How can GIFT Nifty evolve to meet international investors’ growing needs?
With 320 IPOs in India last year, international investors now need access to individual companies, not just the Nifty 50. That’s why a stock connect is becoming very important — it allows them to buy companies one by one. Previously, a few broad indices were enough, but the market’s depth has grown, and international participants are naturally asking for ways to interact with this liquidity.
GIFT is already built to handle a hundred times today’s volume, so facilitating a stock connect is straightforward. By linking international investors with domestic markets, the stock connect would immediately expand the investment pool, making the ecosystem far more integrated and efficient. This is the next frontier of growth for GIFT and a natural evolution of its role as India’s international financial gateway.
Today, the GIFT connect is still in the very early stages — it’s just one way. But not only should customers come in, when they come in, they will also want to trade out. This is what will make GIFT City and the GIFT Connect very powerful. I hope that happens soon.
How is the current revenue split between SGX and GIFT, and how close are we to reaching parity?
Near term milestones were clearly about successfully keeping volumes stable post go-live for GIFT Connect, and we have comfortably exceeded that now. However, the meaningful benchmark is the scale of volume in Mumbai. One day’s derivatives volume there is already bigger than our annual volume at GIFT, so even capturing 1% or 10% would be a major step forward.
The focus is on gradually expanding participation from brokers and customers before thinking about new products. International participants aren’t asking for more products right now — they want more customers to interact with.