New Delhi, Nov 11 (IANS): The IFSC Authority on Wednesday approved the International Financial Services Centres Authority (Banking) Regulations, 2020.

A Finance Ministry statement said that banking constitutes one of the major focus areas of the IFSC and is expected to drive and facilitate its other constituent operations in due course.

"A self-contained regulation laying down the major principles of banking operations at IFSCs is thus an important step in the IFSC reaching its desired potential," it said.

The International Financial Services Centres Authority approved the draft banking regulations at its meeting on Wednesday, which paves the way for putting in place the rules for the various aspects of banking operations that would be permissible at the IFSC.

The salient aspects of the banking regulations include laying down the requirements for setting up IFSC Banking Units (IBU), permitting persons resident outside India with net worth not less than $1 million to open foreign currency accounts in any freely convertible currency at IBUs.

Among other norms, the regulations also permit residents of India with net worth not less than $1 million to open foreign currency accounts in any freely convertible currency at IFSC Banking Units to undertake any permissible current account or capital account transaction or any combination thereof under the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS) of the Reserve Bank of India.