Mumbai, Aug. 3 -- HSBC, State Bank of India (SBI) and ICICI Bank garnered half of all inflows under the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) deposit incentive scheme to attract dollars and strengthen the rupee, official data showed.

The new FCNR scheme allows non-resident Indians (NRIs) to make leveraged and unlevered deposits at Indian banks with the central bank taking the hedging risk, offering the potential for high returns. FCNR stands for foreign currency non-resident account and allows NRIs to keep fixed deposits in India in foreign currency. The scheme was announced on 5 June and rolled out three days later, running till the end of September.

Presenting data on the scheme's deposit inflows in the Parliament on Monday, junior finance mi...