On the cusp of an orbital jump

A 100 weeks of uncertainty coupled with forced reflection has permanently altered the world that we knew. Covid-19 was the wake-up call to take stock and brace for future disruptions with more resilience. Our boats were rocked like never before, but we navigated quite well without dropping anchors. Interestingly, it took a pandemic to trigger a planetary self-realisation and set a globally endorsed target to heal the world. Hereon, we enter an era which has emerged from an inflection point and is expected to be a critical juncture that will usher us into a dramatically different post-Covid environment.

Estimates indicate that by 2025 about 130 zettabytes of data in the world will be unstructured. And a zettabyte is 21 zeros after the 1! This is close to 16 terabytes of data for every living human. Smart organisations in the finance world will derive information from this torrential flow of raw data by leveraging new-gen tools like Big Data, Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, or Machine Learning. They are also expected to pilot technology that will holistically humanise all these future technologies.

Infrastructure investment to improve communication and quality of life in communities will experience a definite fillip. The pandemic showed the world how an ecosystem with better infrastructure— for instance, digital infrastructure— was more prepared to respond to the recent global crisis. Currently, Rs 100 trillion is being budgeted towards infrastructure creation, which will help India achieve the target of $5 trillion economy by 2025 and also ensure direct employment to many. This will be an enabler for the private sector and micro, small and medium enterprises, which are often constrained by this infra deficit. This deficit, once plugged, will result in boosting job creation, and channelise further business growth by saving on the total input cost.

Credit flow is the “bal gunak” that any slowing economy needs. The government is considering moves that aim at sustained credit growth and is also increasing its spending budgets to ensure credit pick-up. As consumption demand is inching up, capacity expansion is expected to follow in various sectors. A road map for our Exim business is now well laid  out to integrate these businesses globally. Private sector participation in the power distribution sector in days to come would certainly scale up capex and will have a cascading effect on its supply and delivery chains. Atmanirbhar Bharat is also on the cusp of the next orbital jump and with the National Infrastructure Pipeline in place, India is probably on track to the double-digit-GDP growth trajectory. With cleaner balance sheets coupled with flagship digital initiatives,he Indian banking system, in partnership with Fintechs and shadow banks, is investment-ready.

Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) concerns are at the heart of every economy now as the world has just formalised its metrics, which though was present before but often got dispelled as an obligation. ESG is no longer just about ticking boxes, it’s about driving value while fuelling growth, and a futuristic circular economy is the only possible catalyst to accomplish the multilateral objectives of strategic development goals at a macro level. The core strategic issue, which needs an early resolution, is how do we reset now that we know when as we lack high quality comparable data on the materiality of climate risk at an industry level.

We are working to shape the way forward as there is no established playbook yet for the required systemic change towards a crisis-resilient sustainable future that is inevitably resolute  — the question is how prepared or willing are we to “roll the dice”. Interestingly, the transformation of the mythological Greek goddess of justice— Dicé into her constellation form of Virgo — is an ever-enduring story of our naivety, but it seems eerily close to the last 100 weeks of unprecedented human crisis; thankfully, we now have the reflected wisdom from our past to alter our future.

The author is managing director and chief executive officer of the Federal Bank