In 2010, Soumya Rajan was a senior private banker at Standard Chartered in Mumbai. Then she quit to set up Waterfield Advisors, a multi-family office and wealth advisory firm which now helps Indian families manage US$4.3 billion in assets. She tells Euromoney why wealth management in India is so exciting, which factors are driving new money creation – and why so many private banks are so bad at serving women.

With Swiggy and Hyundai Motor India filing for big-ticket IPOs, India’s primary capital markets are on a tear. This could be the best year for listings in its history. Can it continue? A useful parallel for global investors can be drawn with China 20 years ago, when the Asian superpower’s markets suddenly sparked into life.

India’s first international financial services centre was created by premier Narendra Modi in 2008. Today, Gift City is a flourishing hub near Ahmedabad in the country’s arid northwest. K Rajaraman, chair of the International Financial Services Centres Authority, tells Euromoney why the zone is vital to India’s financial and economic aspirations.

New highways, bridges and tunnels make travelling in Mumbai easier than it has been in decades. A new metro line is set to open in late 2024, but the city can still be gruelling to navigate. If it wants to be a global financial hub, there is still so much more to do.

India’s wealth-management sector is growing fast, with new advisory firms constantly springing up. This is catnip to private equity firms keen to invest in the best growth-oriented private banks. But who will win this race and who will fall short?

The Singapore state-owned fund has unveiled plans to invest $10 billion in India and to plough more capital into the US and Japan. At the same time, it is quietly retreating from China, once its largest investment market, but now beset by underperforming capital markets, weak growth and bleak consumption data.

Euromoney recently sat down in Dubai with the heads of investment banking for HSBC in the Middle East. The conversation focused on the burgeoning trade and deal flow between the Gulf region and Asia, what investors on both sides are looking for and why they like what they see.

The South Korean automaker is on track to raise upward of $3 billion via the listing of its India unit in Mumbai. If successful, it will surely compel more global firms to raise capital in south Asia’s largest market.

The Singapore lender is looking to India in search of new business and growth opportunities, its chief executive Piyush Gupta tells Euromoney. Long term, it aims to emulate onshore the country’s best private-sector lenders, HDFC and Kotak Mahindra.

Global money is flooding into India to profit from high-performing stocks, a booming economy, and the ease of investing via Gift City, a growing financial hub in Gujarat. Local wealth is flowing the other way, notably to Dubai. It’s a gold mine for private banks, and the process has only just begun.

The German lender’s decision to put its chips on southeast Asia is paying off handsomely. Under the leadership of Asia CEO Alexander von zur Mühlen, Deutsche Bank has doubled its capital in Vietnam and Indonesia, with more to come, moved a host of global roles to the region, and has seen Asean eclipse its India and China business in terms of growth and absolute numbers.

Citi’s head of Asia treasury and trade solutions has retired after 40 years at the US bank. He tells Euromoney what he would do if he were a 20-something graduate today, and why it helps to be both a specialist and a jack-of-all-trades in the industry now.

While no charges have been laid against the Adani Group, a new Sebi rulebook addresses a key concern that came from the January stock-market controversy.

KVS Manian has been overlooked in favour of ex-Barclays man Ashok Vaswani. What does it mean for one of India’s finest banks?

A handwritten note brings down the curtain on a 38-year journey for bank founder.

Two new platforms show how India is building on top of its digital foundations.

Outbound Chinese M&A deal-flow has slowed to a crawl even as inbound activity remains steady. So focus in the region is moving elsewhere: to rising India, steady-and-lucrative Australia and even Japan, where once-bloated conglomerates are streamlining portfolios under intense pressure from activist shareholders.

Credit growth is a key driver of stellar earnings from India’s banks as the country completes its recovery from Covid-19, but another driver is digital traction.

Mixed messaging from India’s Securities and Exchange Board.

Private banks that fled India in the 2010s are returning in force. Those that never left are frantically hiring. With a fast-growing economy creating a lot of new wealth across every sector, India is once again the toast of wealth managers.

A day-by-day account of Adani’s stunning collapse in value.

A two-week period saw Adani Group attacked by a short seller, abandon a $2.5 billion share offer and lose $100 billion in market value. What next? And what does it mean for Modi’s India?

A report by a US short-seller hammered the stock of India’s Adani Group companies just as one of them tried to raise $2.5 billion in a follow-on. It was not just Adani under attack here, but Modi’s vision of corporate India.

Liechtenstein royalty target India’s wealthy.

Kotak Investment Advisors, the special situations arm of Kotak Mahindra, could have $9 billion under management by early next year. It is led by Srini Sriniwasan, who has applied skills learned at Goldman Sachs to develop the business to where it is today.

Amitabh Chaudhry seeks to elevate Axis from its strong position in India to a premium one. The purchase of Citi’s consumer finance business will help – but only if it can keep Citi’s customers.

In previous years, the outflow of foreign portfolio investment that characterized the first seven months of the year in India would have caused a market collapse. This time, it didn’t. The difference: Indian retail finding its voice.

Where once Indian companies went overseas to seek technology, brand and scale, today – thanks to the strength and ambition of private capital – better opportunities can be found at home.

India’s refusal to take a side over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is typical of a geopolitical approach that aims to keep everyone onside – to India’s advantage. Doing so helps the country to keep inflation in check, the one threat to an exceptionally powerful domestic story that is enticing the banking sector.

Not all heroes wear capes. But some do.