India is turning to its overseas community to boost its foreign currency inflows, with banks expected to offer substantial leverage on special foreign-currency deposits. This comes after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) cleared lenders to extend loans against such deposits.Earlier on Tuesday, the apex bank said that lenders can extend loans to overseas residents against foreign-currency deposits and place a lien on those deposits. Banks will also be permitted to issue letters of credit against the product.According to banking officials, lenders may provide leverage running into double digits against these deposits.“We expect banks across the system to offer leverage of up to 9 times,” Alok Singh, head of treasury at Fairfax-backed CSB Bank Ltd told Bloomberg, adding that returns on deposits above 6% and leveraged rates above 10% are enough to attract a significant amount of dollar inflows to the country.The move forms part of a broader effort by authorities to strengthen foreign currency buffers amid the Middle East conflict. With foreign fund outflows from domestic assets dragging down rupee, policymakers have introduced a series of measures aimed at drawing capital into the country.Under the special programme, banks are offering guaranteed returns of more than 7.1% on dollar deposits and have stepped up outreach through advertisements and social media campaigns to attract overseas investors. Some bankers estimate that the initiative could bring in more than $80 billion.The RBI also announced that it will provide a buy-sell foreign exchange swap for eligible deposits. The facility will cover the principal amount, though not the interest component.The latest steps come alongside other coordinated measures unveiled by the government and the central bank in recent weeks. These include a concessional forex-swap facility to encourage overseas borrowings by state-owned companies and full hedging-cost support for banks raising deposits with maturities of three to five years until September 30.The strategy mirrors a mechanism used during the 2013 taper tantrum, when Indian lenders mobilised about $34 billion to help arrest the rupee’s decline.Authorities are counting on the country’s 35-million-strong diaspora to support the latest drive. Non-resident Indian remittances are already among the largest globally, and policymakers hope that a combination of higher deposit rates and leverage options will encourage additional inflows at a time when capital inflows have moderated.India recorded inward remittances of more than $155 billion in 2025-26, Bloomberg reported. With the programme potentially bringing in an estimated additional $50 billion by September, total inflows this year could exceed $200 billion.While countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council were once the dominant source of diaspora remittances, advanced economies now account for a larger share of the money being sent back to India.