India and the United Kingdom will deepen their financial services relationship, focusing on banking, insurance and capital markets. Senior officials of the two countries held the first India-UK 'Financial Markets Dialogue' on a virtual platform late Thursday evening.

Anand Mohan Bajaj, Additional Secretary at the Ministry of Finance, and Katharine Braddick, Director General Financial Services at Her Majesty's Treasury, co-chaired the dialogue, which was established at the tenth Economic and Financial Dialogue (EFD) in October 2020 to deepen bilateral ties in the financial sector.

They discussed a number of areas with a view to boosting the financial services stand - focusing on four themes -- GIFT (Gujarat International Finance Tec-City) City, India’s flagship international financial centre, banking and payments, insurance, and capital markets.

As two services-driven economies, both sides agreed that there is significant scope for strengthening the existing cooperation regarding financial services between India and the UK, both sides conveyed in a joint statement.

The two major democracies said yes to the continuation of their bilateral engagement on those areas in the coming months which lead up to the next EFD and the beginning of negotiations for a future India-UK FTA; expected to take place later this year.

Following the government-to-government discussion, private sector partners were invited to the discussion.

According to the finance ministry, the City of London Corporation’s Capital Markets Working Group presented its work on the Indian corporate bond market.

Down the line, India-UK Financial Partnership presented its recommendations on the UK-India financial services relationship, particularly on the development of GIFT City as a global services hub.(SAM)