Vincent Keaveny, the 693rd Lord Mayor representing the City of London’s financial hub worldwide, has just returned from a four-day visit to India after meeting with leading Indian companies and investors and chief financial officers at the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). . and Securities Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

As London’s ambassador for financial and professional services, the Lord Mayor’s visit aimed to strengthen financial services ties between India and the UK and build strong and sustained capital flows in both directions.

“It’s been a really good time to be in India as the FHA negotiations move into their final stages,” Keaveny told PTI.

“Prime Minister Modi has made it clear that he intends to sign the Diwali Free Trade Agreement. There are some outstanding issues that need to be resolved, but I think there is a lot of optimism on both sides that we can do it. Whatever the content of the agreement, it will have a positive impact across the board on the relationship between India and the UK in the years to come,” he said.

His visit comes amid reports that Modi may be planning a visit to the UK to sign the free trade agreement around Diwali, which falls on October 24. The timetable had been set during former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s visit to India in April and there has been some speculation as to whether the change in leadership in the UK could affect that deadline.

When asked about the prospects, the mayor was optimistic: “It’s a tight deadline, but there is optimism.

“Prime Minister Liz Truss is heavily involved in international trade, she was Secretary of Commerce and during her time as Secretary of State she had a trade focus…we have a Prime Minister who is very trade conscious and will be well placed to take that last leg.”

Keaveny, who also spoke at the Global Fintech Festival in Mumbai earlier this week, highlighted the huge demand for digital services in India as a sign of growing India-UK exchanges in the field.

“London is Europe’s leading fintech hub. And we can all see that India is on the way to becoming Asia’s leading fintech hub – with the highest fintech adoption rates anywhere in the world and the emergence of many unicorns,” he said.

“Besides talent, we have an opportunity to increase connectivity between the UK and Indian fintech ecosystems – both business-to-business connections and connections via hubs and accelerators. time up. FTA negotiations will clearly pave the way for much stronger trade flows between our nations,” he said.

Referring to his discussions with RBI and SEBI, the Lord Mayor described the very “positive commitment” in the area of ​​sustainable finance as an area with “enormous opportunities”.

“India has a very large need for infrastructure investment, amounting to trillions of dollars. Here is an opportunity that we would like to support in the City of London – to channel the capital that is available in the international markets into projects in India that need that capital for infrastructure investments. It’s a tremendous opportunity,” he said.

However, he also pointed to areas where there is less “meeting of minds”, such as Indian companies that could list their shares directly on the international stock exchanges.

“Proposals to allow this are currently on hold. We continue to work towards this. I think it will be beneficial for Indian companies and the Indian business community to tell their story much more directly in the international markets,” he said.