Indians invest big in global equities; pump $1.6 billion in January-September period: RBI data

Indians are not only increasing their participation in the domestic equities market; even international stock markets are seeing record investments from India.

Reserve Bank of India data show that Indian investors had sent out $1.6 billion into international equities in the first nine months of 2025. That surpassed the $1.5 billion investments in the whole of 2024.

This amount used to be around $400 million five years back, according to industry figures.


The demand for diversification of wealth into international stocks has resulted in players like US-headquartered Vested Finance and Gurugram-based IndMoney emerging as major platforms processing such trades.

Now stock broking giant Zerodha, newly minted unicorn Dhan and Bengaluru-based Smallcase are set to start offering international stocks to their clients, according to people in the know.

Zerodha chief executive officer Nithin Kamath mentioned launching international stocks for his clients by early 2026 in a recently conducted ‘Ask Me Anything’ online session.

“Zerodha is preparing to launch, and they will be setting up some presence in the GIFT City (Gujarat International Finance Tec-City) to process these transactions. Dhan is the other new-age broker which will get into this sector soon,” said a person with knowledge of the development.

Zerodha and Dhan did not respond to emailed queries.

As portfolio sizes become bigger, global diversification becomes more imperative, Smallcase CEO Vasanth Kamath told ET, adding that he is foreseeing a lot of headroom for Indian investors to allocate funds to global equities—either directly through stocks and exchange traded funds or via model portfolios.

“Compared to the domestic market which will have around 45 million active traders, the number of Indian participants in the US markets is very small at around 2.0-2.5 million, but this is growing very fast, driven by increasing awareness,” said Nikhil Behl, chief executive officer, stocks at IndMoney.

IndMoney has retail investors participating in this market as well. Some of its clients are investing Rs 30,000 per month in US stocks.

Behl believes that the industry will see around $2 billion worth of investments by the end of the calendar year. RBI data were available only till September.

Regulatory clearance for such trades and a massive increase in awareness around publicly listed American tech companies are primarily driving the demand from Indian investors. There has also been a jump in operations of American tech majors in India through global capability centres and direct investments into Indian startups.

"Portfolio diversification and currency depreciation are the biggest reasons for investors looking to allocate to global equities. Also, a lot of the themes and narratives playing out globally are available as exposures on the US exchanges largely," said Kamath of Smallcase.

On May 2, 2025, the Securities and Exchange Board of India issued a circular allowing brokers to set up a separate business unit to offer these services through GIFT City. The International Financial Services Centre Authority issued its own circular on August 12, allowing the setting up of global access providers (GAPs) who can process such trades.

“There was a regulatory grey zone around investing in US stocks, but now with regulatory clarity this has been solved,” said a top executive at a stockbroking startup.

As per the current arrangement, Indians are making the payments to buy stocks to these GAPs, which in turn place the trades to a US-based broker.

“US stocks are mostly in demand, but Indians can also invest in other global ETFs, which is also an interesting opportunity,” Behl said.