Moneycontrol Mutual Fund Summit 2026: The rise of GIFT City in India’s investment landscape

The Moneycontrol Mutual Fund Summit 2026, bringing together industry leaders and market experts, will take place on 17 February 2026 in Ahmedabad

Moneycontrol Mutual Fund Summit 2026: The Rise of GIFT City in India’s Investment Landscape

As India’s mutual fund industry scales up, questions about how investors participate and how outcomes are maintained are becoming as important as headline growth.

This shift reflects a maturing market, where scale alone is no longer the sole measure of success. It also explains the summit’s growing focus on GIFT City, not merely as a venue, but as a marker of India’s next phase of investing and global integration.

Presented by HDFC Mutual Fund and powered by Axis Mutual Fund, the Moneycontrol Mutual Fund Summit 2026 is supported by Kfintech as Knowledge Partner, Reliance Industries Limited as Associate Partner, and Event Partners Motilal Oswal Mutual Fund, Mirae Asset Mutual Fund, and ITI Mutual Fund, reflecting broad-based industry engagement in shaping these conversations.

This evolution is unfolding against a backdrop of rapid industry expansion. Over the next decade, India’s mutual fund industry is widely expected to grow from roughly ₹40 trillion to nearly ₹100 trillion in assets. That ambition coincides with a participation boom. According to AMFI data, mutual fund assets under management stood at approximately ₹81 lakh crore as of December 31, 2025, backed by about 26.13 crore investor folios.

Monthly SIP inflows have consistently crossed ₹31,002 crore, highlighting how systematic investing has become a core part of household savings behaviour.

In this context, the rise of GIFT City carries strategic relevance. Located in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. GIFT IFSC is India’s designated International Financial Services Centre, overseen by the unified regulator IFSCA. Its mandate is to connect India’s domestic capital markets with global financial infrastructure, spanning banking, capital markets, asset management, insurance, and fintech. For a summit that tracks how products, regulations, and investor needs evolve, GIFT City serves as a practical case study of how global access is being built within an Indian regulatory framework.

The emergence of GIFT City is measurable. Official disclosures indicate that the IFSC ecosystem now hosts over 1,034 registered entities, including more than 38 banks, with aggregate banking assets estimated at over $100 billion. The fund management segment has also expanded steadily, with a growing number of alternative investment funds, ETFs, and cross-border structures being launched from the IFSC platform.

In recent years, Moneycontrol’s summit discussions have increasingly framed GIFT City as enabling a “local-plus-global” investment approach. This framing has gained relevance as Indian investors explore international diversification and fund houses evaluate efficient, regulated pathways to global exposure without stepping outside the domestic financial system.

Taken together, the relevance is clear. As India’s mutual fund base grows in size and diversity, GIFT City represents the system-level capability required for the next phase of growth, global connectivity, regulatory maturity, and product innovation. In a market where participation is scaling rapidly, the conversation is shifting from more investors to better investment pathways, and that is where GIFT City increasingly enters the picture.

The Moneycontrol Mutual Fund Summit 2026, bringing together industry leaders and market experts, will take place on 17 February 2026 in Ahmedabad, anchoring these conversations at a moment of structural transition for India’s investment landscape.

Register now to be part of the conversations shaping the next phase of India’s mutual fund ecosystem.