The research analyses the current Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) volumes between UK and India, assesses barriers impacting financial services inflows to India and estimates the impact of these inflows on India’s GDP. The total FDI volumes and the financial services volumes between the two countries are insignificant compared to their global volumes. These insignificant financial services volumes are attributed to onerous FDI requirements relating to wholly owned subsidiary set up, mandatory branch opening policies which require prior approval from the RBI, priority sector lending which mandates foreign banks adhere to strict lending limits to weaker sections of society and branch expansion plans which requires foreign banks to adhere to annual expansion limits across different tiers defined. These barriers have an impact on the financial inflows in India. The impact of financial services inflows on India’s GDP between 2001 and 2020 is estimated using Johansen’s cointegration and Vector Error Correction Mechanism (VECM). The empirical findings suggest that in the long run, financial services inflows and India’s GDP is positively correlated. A 1% rise in financial services imports from the UK increases India’s GDP by approximately 0.12%. In the short run, a change in the financial services inflows negatively impacts the change in India’s GDP. Thus, policymakers should focus on further deregulation to increase the overall FDI inflows and inflows in the financial services sector. This research is useful for policymakers and think tanks given the recent focus on the UK-India trade deal with a view to doubling UK-India trade over the next decade. The research can be expanded in future to assess the impact on GDP by including inflows from other sectors including telecommunication and retail.