In an environment where India’s fixed-income markets are undergoing structural transition, treasury functions across financial institutions are being forced to adapt in real time. Few practitioners reflect this shift more clearly than Harsimran Singh Sahni, Executive Vice President and Head of Treasury at Anand Rathi Global Finance Limited, who has spent more than 15 years working across banks and NBFCs at the centre of India’s trading and liquidity ecosystem.
Sahni began his career at Union Bank of India, managing a substantial ₹80,000-crore fixed income portfolio, an early responsibility that shaped his understanding of market structure, risk dynamics and behavioural cycles. His subsequent roles at Kotak Mahindra Bank and Edelweiss added breadth to his trading and investment perspective. For the past six years, he has led the treasury function at Anand Rathi Global Finance, overseeing investments, liquidity and trading activity while building the institutional infrastructure that supports these operations.
During this period, the treasury has not only become a profit-generating centre but has undergone a significant transformation in capability. Under his leadership, the firm notably became the first NBFC to receive ASTROID (Anonymous System for Trading in Rupee OTC Interest Rate Derivatives) membership, a set of regulatory approvals that now enable direct participation in government securities and interest-rate derivatives markets. These developments, achieved alongside simultaneous expansion of mid-office, back-office and settlement functions, mark an important institutional shift for an NBFC operating in the fixed-income space.
Sahni’s approach to treasury management is anchored in a simple yet methodical framework: safety, liquidity and return, in that order. He emphasises that compliance and governance form the base of any balance-sheet institution. Liquidity, ensuring smooth operations across changing market conditions, comes next. Only after these foundations are secure does he focus on generating returns. It is a model that has helped the treasury deliver profits consistently since 2020, including during the pandemic and subsequent periods of global monetary tightening.
Beyond the operational aspects of treasury, Sahni pays close attention to the broader evolution of India’s debt markets. He notes that the government securities market has become increasingly transparent and screen-driven. In contrast, the corporate bond market remains more dependent on broker intermediation due to information asymmetries around inventory and ownership patterns. He also highlights the growing role of NBFCs in secondary markets, estimating that they now contribute 15–20% of government securities trading volumes, a shift that has diversified market participation and improved liquidity across tenors.
On the risk front, Sahni argues that the most significant emerging challenge for Indian corporates is not leverage, where balance sheets are relatively resilient, but innovation. India’s R&D spending remains low compared to its global peers and he believes this gap could increasingly constrain competitiveness. For him, the real long-term risk is an insufficient pipeline of intellectual property and technological advancement at the corporate level.
If market structure and policy shape one part of his worldview, the other is influenced by financial history. Sahni describes himself as a student of past cycles, with a particular interest in understanding how human behaviour: greed, fear & optimism, repeats across generations. This perspective informs both his approach to risk and his belief that studying historical crises provides an important analytical advantage for modern treasury professionals.
Technology, in his view, is now reshaping the treasury role faster than any single regulatory or market reform. What was earlier a largely end-of-day, report-driven function has become a real-time capability, supported by automation, data infrastructure and digital trading platforms. Exposure monitoring, mark-to-market movements, liquidity positions and compliance checks are now tracked instantaneously, allowing treasuries to respond to market movements with greater speed and accuracy. He sees this transition as irreversible and central to how institutions will manage risk over the coming decade.
For younger professionals entering the field, Sahni offers pragmatic advice: develop a global perspective, stay close to macro developments, understand cross-market correlations and invest time in studying historical financial events. Treasury, he says, requires judgment under uncertainty, a skill built through a mix of experience, context and intellectual discipline.
In a marketplace where volatility and structural shifts increasingly intersect, Sahni’s steady, analytical style reflects a broader trend within India’s financial sector: the rise of treasury leaders who combine operational discipline with a wider appreciation of market history, technology and institutional risk.
