The state’s Finance Department has now shared a fresh development: it has prepared a draft FinTech Policy.

No information has been made public on whether stakeholder consultations have been conducted. But the Finance Department said Gujarat has initiated the process of preparing its first exclusive FinTech Policy.

Compared to neighbouring Maharashtra, Gujarat is late by eight years. But as the saying goes: better late than never. The most interesting aspect of this policy is that its focus will not be GIFT City, but the FinTech ecosystem emerging outside GIFT City.

IFSCA Regulation

Banks, fund managers, and other financial institutions operating inside GIFT City are already regulated by the International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA). The state government can neither regulate their operations nor frame a separate policy for them.

Therefore, Gujarat is now focusing on companies that operate in digital finance but fall outside the jurisdiction of IFSCA. In other words, Gujarat is no longer looking only at GIFT City—it is now setting out to build a “Beyond GIFT” ecosystem.

Maharashtra got this game eight years ago. In 2018, it unveiled the country’s first dedicated FinTech Policy. Even then, the discussion was never limited to startups alone. The government had set a clear objective: Mumbai will be India’s Global FinTech Capital. It did not merely announce incentives but designed an entire ecosystem around that vision.

Maharashtra understood that FinTech companies do not become large because of land or electricity subsidies. They grow by being close to data, banks, regulators and capital.

Beyond GIFT City?

That is the question the new FinTech Policy seeks to answer. Financial activities inside GIFT City are already governed by IFSCA, but until now there has been no separate policy for digital finance companies emerging in Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar, Vadodara, Surat, and Rajkot. The new policy will fill that gap.

Gujarat is not merely targeting startups; it is targeting the entire digital finance market. FinTech today is no longer limited to Paytm or PhonePe. A fintech company today may operate in any of the following segments: UPI, QR Payments, Digital Wallet, Payment Gateway, Digital Lending, AI-based Banking Software, Embedded Finance, WealthTech, InsurTech, RegTech, Cross-border Payments, Blockchain Infrastructure, Enterprise Web3, and Financial SaaS. 

Gujarat wants to attract companies that will lay the foundation of the digital financial economy over the next decade.

In other words, the state wants to encourage companies that are digitising banking.

Not regulation, but competitiveness.

People often mistake a state policy for regulation. In reality, that is not the case. FinTech in India continues to be regulated by the RBI, SEBI, IRDAI, PFRDA, IFSCA and CERT-In. Companies are required to comply with all regulations relating to KYC, AML, Cyber Security, Consumer Protection and Data Compliance. Gujarat’s policy will not grant licences. It will simply make it economically more attractive for companies to do business in Gujarat.

Shifting Competition Dynamics

The real competition is now between states:

Maharashtra is offering incentives. Karnataka is offering a startup ecosystem. Telangana is offering an innovation network. Tamil Nadu is building a FinTech Corridor. And now Gujarat has one major trump card: GIFT City.

But merely having GIFT City is not enough.

The state will have to create a policy that makes every fintech founder ask:

“Why not Ahmedabad?”

This policy will not be judged merely by the incentives it offers.

The real questions will be:

Will Gujarat introduce a Regulatory Sandbox? Will the state create a FinTech Innovation Fund? Will it connect universities with the fintech ecosystem? Will it be able to attract global investors to Gujarat? Will it transform the GIFT City brand into a statewide innovation cluster?

If the answer is yes, Gujarat will not merely become another state with a FinTech Policy. It could emerge as India’s next Digital Finance Powerhouse.

If the answer is no, GIFT City will continue to grow as an international financial centre, but the fintech ecosystem across the rest of the state may continue to lag behind competing states.

FinTech Policy Landscape

FinTech policies have already been introduced in the Indian states of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Karnataka. The Gujarat government has now prepared a draft FinTech policy.

Meanwhile, the Uttar Pradesh government has recently approved the development of a sprawling 250-acre FinTech Park near the Yamuna Expressway. Besides these, the governments of Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, and Haryana are also considering introducing dedicated FinTech policies.

Final Draft After Consultations

A senior official from the Finance Department told The Secretariat, “Before preparing the draft policy, we studied the FinTech policies of several states, including Maharashtra. The objective of this initiative is to promote innovation, investment and industry development in the financial technology sector and position Gujarat as a preferred FinTech hub. Under the new policy, FinTech companies will receive sector-specific incentives in addition to the benefits available under the existing IT/ITeS Policy. In the next stage, the draft policy will be finalised after consultations with industry stakeholders.”

An executive from GIFT City said, “No official figure has been released on the total number of FinTech companies or FinTech startups in India. However, according to an analysis by JM Financial, the number of registered FinTech startups in the country has crossed 10,000. In GIFT City, 37 FinTech startups had been supported under its innovation and acceleration programmes as of March 2026. However, many companies are registered under different categories such as FinTech, TechFin, RegTech, Sandbox and Innovation Hub.”