WEAVENINGS at Krea- Building the Ethos of Community in the ‘New Now’

April 03, 2020:…In what will be the first of many, the Krea family had a virtual evening of engagement and thoughts titled – Weavenings.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

– J.R.R. Tolkien – The Fellowship of the Ring

Dr Akhila Ramnarayan, Divisional Chair of Literature and Arts at Krea, channelled her inner Frodo and ushered in buoyancy into the first session of Weavenings at Krea University. Times are unpredictable, but dialogue and sharing brings hope and optimism no matter what lies ahead. The evening saw immersive discussion, suggestions, learnings and even a mention of Sherlock Holmes! Even as the Krea community misses intense ideation, tea break conversations and healthy battles of wits afforded by face-to-face interaction in the physical realm, ‘Weavenings’ aims to bring us back together, albeit virtually. This effort was orchestrated by the Communications team at Krea, who will present fortnightly editions of Weavenings, knitting together various strands of the Krea fabric.

Dr. Sunder Ramaswamy, Vice-Chancellor, Krea University, introduced the session, remarking that when stepping into unpredictable times, a sense of community is paramount.

Punctuated with camaraderie, the ensuing discussion between Dr. Ramnarayan and Dr. John Mathew, Associate Professor of History of Science, Humanities & Social Sciences and Sciences, Krea University, explored how conversation can create community. Dr. Mathew took the audience, who signed in from various parts of the country, through episodes of historical crisis, connecting them to the pandemic wave of today.

“How do we react in times of uncertainty?” With this question, Dr. Mathew introduced the anthology Empires of Panic: Epidemics and Colonial Anxieties (edited by Robert Peckham, 2015) and discussed the origin of the Epidemic Act. Using historical instances such as the Spanish Flu and the Mumbai plague, Dr. Mathew offered clarity of perspective on the present pandemic and public reactions to it. Albert Camus’s modern-day classic The Plague (1947) has never seemed more relevant, he said.

“We have to invoke an expression of gratitude here. Our minds have been opened up to conversations we wouldn’t even have dreamt of having three months prior,” Dr. Mathew said.

Quoting the Tolkien passage above, Dr. Ramnarayan added,” Many things may divide us. But we should welcome differences, as they reflect how diverse we are. We need to find stories that bring us together at this time as we embrace our diversity. “Dr. Ramnarayan finished with a rendition of “I Sing of Change,” a poem of hope and resilience by Nigerian poet Niyi Osundare.

Prof. Anil Srinivasan, renowned classical pianist and Associate Professor of Practice at Krea University brought the virtual curtains down with rhythm and USA for Africa’s ‘We Are the World’ on his piano. The audience hummed and sang along knowing that even a dark tomorrow calls for hope, strength and esprit de corps.

Krea University launches ‘VENI – The Ideas Place’ in Chennai

Chennai, February 2, 2020:…Krea University launched its new initiative ‘VENI- The Ideas Place’ in Chennai.

VENI (which stands for Visualise Explore Nurture Interweave) will be a platform to stage discussions, dialogue and debate relevant to academia, industry and community, aimed towards sustainable impactful solutions for the future.

The launch event on 01 February 2020, titled “Interweaving Ideas: Where Creativity Meets Critical Thinking”, had three distinguished speakers — legal practitioner Arundhati Katju, economist Reuben Abraham and arts performer Jacob Boehme.

In her address on ‘

“Students, Freedom and the Constitution,” Arundhati Katju, who litigated the Section 377 case at the Supreme Court and the Delhi High Court, said that people can have multiple identities but everyone must be given full and equal citizenship rights. “The future of the Constitution is in the hands of India’s youth, who constitute 65% of the population.”

Reuben Abraham, CEO of IDFC Institute, a policy think tank, in his talk on “India Lives in Her Cities,” called into question “rural” and “urban” definitional categories.

“We think that we must take jobs to our people, but it is better to take people to jobs, and the jobs are available more in cities. If you take Maharastra, its GDP is about USD 500 billion but its capital Mumbai alone accounts for more than half of its GDP. New York alone is a USD 1.5 trillion economy. Tokyo’s economy is bigger than countries like Canada, Turkey, Iran. Around 70% of the world’s GDP comes just from 40 urban centres,” he pointed out.

Taking part in the interactive session, Jacob Boehme, an aboriginal artist, and activist from South Australia, spoke about “Arts and Activism in the 21st Century. “He said that the voice of aboriginals in mainstream discussions on social issues is still feeble and that puts them in a disadvantageous position.”

The event was attended by students, academia and members from the industry.

Dr Akhila Ramnarayan, Divisional Chair of Literature and Arts at Krea and curator of programming for Krea’s Chennai venue, articulated the vision of VENI, a meeting place for researchers, students, educators, practitioners, and industry professionals in which diverse strands of thinking interweave to generate impactful solutions and action. She shared the upcoming public events calendar of VENI, including talks, workshops, panels, film screenings, a book club, and conversation sessions.

The launch of VENI – The Ideas Place is a key initiative by Krea central to our interwoven learning approach, providing Krea faculty and students a means by which to interface with Chennai’s diverse constituencies”, she said.

Explaining the concept of interwoven learning at Krea, Dr. Sunder Ramaswamy, ViceChancellor, Krea University, said, “it is an approach that weaves together creativity and action, arts and sciences, theory and practice, Eastern and Western perspectives as also the learnings of the past with the readiness for the future.

“At Krea University, interwoven learning is beyond an academic concept. The theories are strongly internalised by immersive learning experiences of real-world projects. We bring together the arts with the sciences, we believe that even if you want to be a poet, you need to learn data science. Likewise, if you want to be a computer scientist, you still need to understand humanities from the point of view of aesthetics and art, and events like these give our students that exposure to this thought process” he said.

Krea University partners with Kauvery Hospital for campus health facilities

Krea University has inked a significant partnership with Kauvery Hospital, a reputed name in healthcare, to operate and maintain a health centre and pharmacy at Krea University campus in Sri City. The partnership also brings with it a bouquet of specialised health services, in line with the University’s focus on providing high quality support for the health and wellbeing of Krea students, faculty and staff.

Krea University was set up with an aim to re-imagine education for the 21st century. The 40-acre campus stands about 60 kilometres north of Chennai in Sri City, Andhra Pradesh and is replete with state-of-the-art facilities, with special emphasis on the physical and mental health requirements of the students, faculty and staff.

“Krea University is proud to ink collaboration with Kauvery Hospital to provide 24 x 7 healthcare services for our Sri City campus to serve the needs of all our community members. Kauvery Hospital is a trusted and leading 1300 bed multispeciality hospital and well known in the healthcare sector for its ethical practices. Through this partnership we look forward to providing continuous and quality medical support to all Krea students and staff”, said Group Capt. Puthan Ramesh – Chief Administrative Officer of Krea University Campus.

The Krea campus health centre, managed by Kauvery Hospital will have a dedicated general practitioner and occupational health nurses on duty, with the doctor available over call 24×7, ensuring that all medical requests and emergencies are swiftly dealt with. The health centre will also have a BLS ambulance with round the clock service availability and routine first aid facilities. The onsite pharmacy will cater to the needs of the campus residents with well stocked inventory. Apart from dedicated case basis support and follow ups, there will also be routine check-ups and health promotion activities. From time to time, healthcare specialists will also be arranged to make campus visits.

The partnership also brings forth holistic healthcare management which could include Continuous Medical Education on a monthly basis, rendering professional advice to the campus administration in safety and hygiene practices- from maintenance of buildings, kitchen area, food and water testing to student dietary chart. Advise on COVID management protocols will also be contributed. The students and members of the staff at Krea shall be entitled to avail treatment for any diseases at any of the Kauvery Hospitals in Tamil Nadu including treatment for COVID-19.

Kauvery will also join forces with Krea University through the extension of its community campaigns.

Coronavirus and its Impact on the Economy: exploring threats and opportunities

Madhuri Saripalle, Associate Professor, Graduate School of Business, IFMR, Sricity.

The world economy is facing one of its worst crises since a century. Economies across the globe are seeing a sharp contraction in growth caused by the economic lockdown to control the spread of the virus. This has led to a supply shock, reduction in output, employment and consequently, demand. The Indian economy was already facing serious structural issues and facing a downturn, which probably have receded to the background with the more serious threat of the pandemic at hand. Two important questions are: a) when will the economy restart and what will be the sectoral response; b) what policy measures can speed up the recovery process? It is also a time to reset the economy by creating skills and improving productivity through innovation.

To address the first question, as economies restart, there will be varied response across various sectors. For example, industries such as essential goods and services such as drugs and pharmaceuticals, essential health and financial services such as insurance, production of essential foods such as pulses, etc, will see rapid growth, while industries and services which are based on discretionary spend like restaurants, entertainment, tourism will be hard hit. More detailed analysis can be read here and here. The impact of economic slowdown is widespread because almost every sector is dependent on trade and global supply chains. The pandemic is a double whammy on an already existing slowdown in the economy, which is a an area of much more serious concern.

In this article I will analyse the structural imbalances in our trade sector which have got further amplified with the pandemic and explore how these can be addressed.

Lack of diversity in Trade basket-opportunity or threat?

In our trade basket, if we exclude textiles, the exports and imports are concentrated in just a few products. The top 5 commodities constitute 60-70 percent of total exports and imports in India (table 1). It is time to create comparative advantage in labour intensive sectors such as leather, sports goods, automotive ancillaries to increase employment. The pandemic has given us an opportunity wherein supply chains will be re-routed from the manufacturing engine of the world-China to India so that we can prepare ourselves to skill our young workforce and increase productivity in export-oriented sectors.

Table 1: Diversity in Trade basket in India

S.no.	Commodities	% Share in Exports	% Share in Imports
1	Mineral Fuels, Oils and Products	14	32
2	Gems and Jewelry	12	12
3	Textiles	10	1.4
4	Electrical Machinery and Equipment	5	11
5	Nuclear Reactors, Boilers and parts	7	9
6	Organic Chemicals	6	4
7	Vehicles other than railway or tramway	5	1.1
8	Pharmaceutical Products	5	0.5
	Total	63	71
	Source: EXIM database. Ministry of commerce, GOI

Decline in trade from November 2019: when will green shoots emerge?

The decline in exports and imports started from November 2019 onwards when sectors such as jewellery, textiles, ores and minerals registered fall in exports. Important sectors such as oil, coal, iron and steel, transport equipment and electronic goods declined as well reflecting decreased economic activity. During January-March 2020, with the exception of ore exports and transport equipment imports (mostly railway and locomotives, boats and floating structures), there has been a widespread decline in trade due to supply chain disruptions. As countries emerge from lockdown, there will be revival in economic activity and there should be enough policy measures both on the supply as well as demand side simultaneously for a balanced pick-up in economic activity.

The Call to Adventure

Call to adventure

The blog is written by Sameer Abraham Thomas. The Author is a Faculty Associate, Centre for Writing & Pedagogy at Krea University.

21 July 2020: I got up earlier than usual today. The sound of rain woke me up at half past six in the morning – or perhaps it was the cessation of the sound; my father told me it had started raining earlier and had abated a little by 6:30.

Waking up in the dark, some pale light shining through the one window in my room, I listened to the soft drumming of raindrops on some roof somewhere, possibly ours, as if it were an alarm, rousing me from my slumber and calling me to adventure.

It seems to me as I write this that every morning is a call to adventure in some ways. What is it that gets us out of our beds? An alarm, perhaps – some sudden sound; or perhaps the cessation or change of some white noise that had lulled us to sleep at night, or that had slipped seamlessly into our ears at some point after we had nodded off and only just now felt the impetus to leave.

Sometimes, we wake up because someone is calling us, and the reason they want us awake and not asleep is our call to adventure. Sometimes we ignore the call and stay in bed. Adventure calls to minds that are not ready to hearken to that call. They are not yet ready. But one day…

I remember long periods of time when my mind wasn’t ready. It was either too busy making itself anxious or curling up in a defensive ball, paralyzing me to protect me from the dangers posed by any and every adventure, no matter how small. Those were not happy days, but maybe they were necessary at the time. Shields do protect us, but they wear down over time, unless withdrawn to make way for a sudden spear. And a worn-out shield can protect you no more than can a mind, tired of defending itself against itself.

The shield falls and then there is nothing left to insulate ourselves from the call, but now we are too exhausted from the battering of our shields to be able to respond. We lie in bed and listen to the call resound like some song at a festival we know we might love but which we are terrified of losing ourselves in. It takes time and courage to realize that perhaps joy lies in letting ourselves get lost; the challenge of facing the unknown, the challenge of choosing the right path, the challenge of fighting the world and not ourselves, and then the challenge of finding our way home – perhaps it was this that our minds were preparing themselves for all along. It took time, but finally they were ready, and then they fell before us, the clang of the fallen shield beginning yet another call to adventure as the spear finally finds itself in our hands. The call to adventure – we didn’t recognize it then. But, if we persist… today, we might.

Current Trends in Banking and Finance

The blog is written by C. Krishnan. The Author is Director, Financial Assistance & Senior Advisor, IFMR Graduate School of Business, Krea University.

I joined the banking industry in the pre-computerized era and have seen the many changes over the last three decades. However, the changes that I have witnessed in the last 10 years have probably been significantly more than what I had witnessed in the previous 25 years. The banking and financial services industry has been turning its focus toward innovation to prepare for a future that will be increasingly driven by technology.

Customers and prospective customers are no longer dependent upon banks as they used to be many years ago. Competition from shadow banking and Fintech/TechFin companies is growing. Lakshmi, Pepper, Nao, Ira and, Xiao Long may not be familiar names for the common person; however, they are quite familiar to the banking fraternity. What are they? They are humanoid robots and chatbots that are creating a revolution in the Banking and Financial Services Industry.

Some of the key trends that are re-shaping the BFS industry are:

A. Digital Transformation:

The industry is witnessing a continued and aggressive focus on digitization and the adoption of new and emerging technologies to bring in operational efficiencies, enhance speed-to-market and deliver superior customer experiences. Banks are cutting down expenses on branches to invest in self-service digital channels as mobile and online banking become more popular among customers. Digital wearable devices, which pack the power of smartphones, are making it increasingly feasible for banks to offer targeted services to customers.

B. FinTech Companies:

Many banks are seeking to exploit the opportunities presented by digital, either by leveraging the technologies in-house or by partnering with FinTech companies. Initially, these companies were seen as competitors taking advantage of the void that was created by the BFS industry’s inability to keep up with technological breakthroughs. However, today, Bank-FinTech partnerships are increasingly the norm, with the latter providing marketing, administration, loan servicing or other services enabling banks to offer tech-enabled banking products.

C. Building a Cognitive Side to the Business:

As new regulatory requirements and data protection laws put additional strains on already-stretched resources, emerging technologies such as AI and Robotic Process Automation are helping banks address these constraints efficiently.

D. Risk: Leveraging technology to elevate risk management:

Regulatory divergence, geopolitical instability, and the possibility of a downturn have created a host of impending risks, requiring financial institutions to rethink traditional approaches to risk management. Additionally, nonfinancial risks remain top of mind for regulators and banks alike and many have begun to sharpen their focus on this emerging subset of risks.

E. Transformation – Key to the Industry’s Future:

To be most effective, banks and financial institutions should re-define themselves as agile technology companies in the financial services industry, not the other way around. This implies that BFS companies should shed their non-core operations, retaining only those businesses that provide true differentiation for customers.

To summarize, as banks continue to cope with the developments that have already made an impact, their ability to transform themselves with speed and agility, and their future strategies to survive the next revolution, will determine the winners and losers in this increasingly digital world.

IFMR GSB MBA-Internship Stories | Sumit Jha

IFMR GSB MBA-Internship Stories are a series of interviews with the students of IFMR GSB, who have recently completed their Summer Internships. Here, Sumit Jha, MBA 2021 shares his internship experience and learnings at Credit Suisse.

Could you tell us about the organization you have completed/are doing your internship from?

Credit Suisse is a global wealth manager, investment bank and financial services company founded and based in Switzerland. It mainly focuses on global markets.

Did you focus on a specific domain while participating in summer placements? How did you approach the whole process?

Yes, I was focused on Risk Management. Before the placement season, I spoke to seniors within the MBA programme and did ample research on the roles offered by Credit Suisse.

Now that the internship has successfully concluded, could you reflect on your experience through the same?

From a learning perspective, the experience was great. I was able to gain deep practical understanding of risk management practices.

How was the environment of the company, the resources, employees and work culture?

The employees were friendly, helpful and approachable. The resources were great, from learning tools to hardware.

What were the key challenges you faced during your internship and how did you overcome them?

Getting appointments for meeting slots with senior stakeholders was challenging as their schedules were always packed. Though continuous follow up and reaching out to them over the phone eventually helped.

How about the learnings you garnered from this internship? Are there any milestones you would like to share?

The skills I learnt at Credit Suisse has helped me develop a practical understanding to complement the theoretical knowledge I will be acquiring in my MBA programme. I completed my deliverables before the assigned deadline and that was a definite milestone.

Do you think it’s important for an MBA student to do an internship? What values/skills can a student gain from a summer placement?

Yes, it is important. Practical understanding of concepts can help align your career, provide information related to upskilling and importantly tell you whether you should work in this domain or a change is required. It also helps decide, which subjects you should study in your final year or which stream to choose, whether generalisation will be suitable or specialisation.

During your internship, how were you connected with your academic mentor(s) at the institute?

I was in constant touch with my mentor over email and phone. The ensuing conversation along with constant support, aided in shaping a great internship experience.

Would you prefer to return to the organization for a job opportunity in the future?

Yes, I would definitely want to return to Credit Suisse for a job opportunity.

With due consideration to COVID-19, all internships were moved to the virtual mode- how was that navigating through this new experience?

Even though I missed the in-person experience and the fact that substantial learning during internships comes from shadowing a senior resource which is tough in the virtual mode but given the dire situation, Credit Suisse did the best in the circumstances.

Could you tell us how the remote working experience was, with respect to building team rapport, internal communication and work as a whole?

The entire experience was great, given the security challenges COVID-19 posed. The team was very supportive, internal communications were crystal clear and from a work perspective the experience was helpful as I learned some important practical concepts.

IFMR GSB MBA-Internship Stories | Nandan Sudheer

IFMR GSB MBA-Internship Stories are a series of interviews with the students of IFMR GSB, who have recently completed their Summer Internships. Here, Nandan AS, MBA 2021 shares his internship experience and learnings at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Could you tell us about the organization you have completed/are doing your internship from?

JPMorgan Chase & Co. is an American multinational investment bank and financial services holding company headquartered in New York City. It is the world’s most valuable bank by market capitalization.

Did you focus on a specific domain while participating in summer placements? How did you approach the whole process?

Being an engineer and having worked in Fintech and Data startups, I was looking for a role where I could use my existing expertise and also learn more from an industry that is new to me. Corporate and Investment Banking is very new to me and the CADP program of JPMorgan Chase & Co. was perfect for my skill sets.

Now that the internship has successfully concluded, could you reflect on your experience through the same?

My internship with JPMorgan Chase & Co. started, when the uncertainty in businesses across the globe was building up. However, none of that affected the work or the interactions between the firm and the interns. We had 3-4 online sessions per week which included learning series, ‘virtually humane’ sessions, sessions on good work and volunteering etc. They always kept us engaged and ensured that we learnt and understood what it meant, to be part of this great organization.

How was the environment of the company, the resources, employees and work culture?

The culture is very welcoming and open. We were encouraged to ask questions about anything relevant to our internships, to our peers in the team, to our manager or the recruitment team and they never left any of them unanswered. Every intern was assigned a buddy, who was previously an intern like us and later got hired by the firm, to help us get our access details and support in any queries we had.

What were the key challenges you faced during your internship and how did you overcome them?

The concept of a completely virtual internship was new to me. Again, the great team, the continuous engagement, and the sessions imparted the constant feeling that we were in real working for a great organization.

How about the learnings you garnered from this internship? Are there any milestones you would like to share?

For someone who is from an Engineering background, this internship increased my interest in finance and financial products which was previously a whole new topic of study for me. I am pretty sure this learning will make a huge impact on my career going forward.

Do you think it’s important for an MBA student to do an internship? What values/skills can a student gain from a summer placement?

Yes. More than the skills, it is the excitement that builds in every student’s mind that drives the second year of MBA forward. To get a hint of what one may achieve in their career after college is a big morale boost, pushing one to perform better and reach the peak of productivity.

During your internship, how were you connected with your academic mentor(s) at the institute?

My academic mentor for the internship was Prof.Suresh Venkatraman. There was a particular conversation when he explained to me different scenarios in the organizations he previously worked for, and how he used to handle such situations. That learning from real-life experiences is the biggest learning any student can get from his/her academic mentor, and it has done wonders to my internship experience.

Would you prefer to return to the organization for a job opportunity in the future?

Yes, definitely.

With due consideration to COVID-19, all internships were moved to the virtual mode- how was that navigating through this new experience?

As mentioned earlier, the concept of a completely virtual internship was new for me but the organization ensured that it was seamless. Multiple platforms were used in the engagement process.

Could you tell us how the remote working experience was, with respect to building team rapport, internal communication and work as a whole?

We had 3-4 online sessions per week. Fun team activities were also conducted, where interns from different colleges were grouped into different teams and given weekly tasks with a scoreboard. This built a rapport and a sense of healthy competition among the interns, and also helped in forming new friendships.

Could you share a memorable incident from your internship days?

I cannot explain the feeling, the day I got appreciated for my work. For all the hard work we do, the gesture of appreciation is a big achievement and that is the most memorable incident for me, through this internship.

Afri-terra: An Economic Journey

The blog is written by Amit Agrawal. The Author is a MBA student of IFMR GSB at Krea University

If you think economic super-powered China as the fastest growing economies in the world due to its 6-7% consistent growth rate, probably you might want to twitch your nerves again. China is not even in the top 20 fastest growing economies on the planet. In fact, about 38% of the top 50 fastest growing economies comes from one single continent.

‘Afri-terra’ (later Africa).

A leap in 2002 says that the GDP per capita of Sub-Saharan Africa was a paltry $588b. Yet by 2019, the GDP per capita had grown to well over $1600b – A 172% spurt increase in the wealth of the continent in less than two decades. This massive increase in wealth has brought Nigeria, Botswana, and Ghana out of relative poverty.

But what has brought Africa’s economy out of poverty? Or more importantly, who has brought it out?

Africa has been the most underdeveloped continent over the last several centuries; it has only 60,000 km of highways constructed in the entire 30.4 million km² surface area, while the US stands with 108,000 km of highways in a 9.8 million km² area. In fact, to this day there are still no paved highways that travel through anywhere in Central Africa. And the transportation network has been just one of a litany of infrastructure flaws in Africa. It had problems with electricity availability, internet access, and water shortages as well.

But things started to change just a few decades ago.

China slowly started gaining large amounts of influence in Africa post 1970s. It did this by increasing foreign aid and trade with many African countries and investing billions per year in African infrastructure projects. For example, Africa’s main railways in Kenya, Ethiopia, Angola, Djibouti, and Nigeria are all funded by China. They also funded for major Headquarters, Zimbabwe’s new parliament building, several major power plants, oil refineries, and an entire city in Egypt.

But why is China investing so much money in Africa?

Reason? ‘Resources’. China trades for one-third of crude oil against $128b with Africa.

Political Influence. At any of the UN special session votes: from voting on the status of Jerusalem to voting on human rights violations in Myanmar, Ukraine, Iran, and Syria, a large portion of African continent did not go against China. Now, my say isn’t that China is buying votes at the UN but at the very least China has probably influenced the voting pattern of many African nations. The same could very well be said for the US influence on many Western countries.

Labor. China began shifting a lot of its labor industries to Ethiopia due to cheaper labor. It is estimated that roughly 12% of Africa’s manufacturing production today is being run by Chinese companies.

ROI. China has pumped in money into Africa for good returns. From 2006 to 2011, the average return on African investments for China was a hefty 11% per year. In fact, roughly 15% of all African debt is owned by the Chinese government, and two-thirds of all loans given to African nations in the past 3 years have come from China. In 2018, China announced of financing $60b solely for Africa over the next decade.

Amidst this Chinese heavy investments, big tech is contributing to Africa’s modernization for last ten years. The South Korean company, Samsung, viewed Africa as the next giant consumer market and doubled its investment (2012) to become the most valuable phone company on the continent. But recently the true winner of this race was Huawei. As part of China’s plan to build up the infrastructure of Africa, they also ended up building over 70% of Africa’s 4G and 5G networks – meaning that at the end of the day, Huawei may not be the king of the smartphone market but they are the undisputed champion of the telecom industry.

Amazon’s $100m data-centre in Cape Town, Facebook’s multi-billion dollar ‘Project Simba’ and Google’s Equiano marks the booming African investment. Other notable investors are Microsoft, Netflix, IBM, Cisco, and Uber.

Overall, an influx of investments from both American and Chinese companies coupled with an increase of trade and investments from some national governments created an economic battleground. Companies and governments can build up Africa’s infrastructure the fastest, and dominate the emerging markets before its competitors can which resulted in some rapid modernization in infrastructure. For example, as compared to 2000, today roughly 45% of the population has access to electricity against 26% and 40% of the continent now has access to the Internet against 1%.

The biggest factor for Africa’s future economy might be Africa itself. Take for example, ‘Jumia’ – launched as an African e-commerce startup, expanded, got listed, and valued at a billion dollars. McKinsey’s database of large businesses in Africa reveals 400 companies earns revenue of $1b or more and nearly 700 companies have revenue greater than $500m. Another positive sign was when Africa witnessed the African Continental free-trade agreement (March 2018) for the purpose of making Africa a single market thereby deepening the economic integration of the entire continent. Projections state that this trade agreement could lift intra-African trade by up to 52%. But this is just one step.

BOTTOM LINE

Africa has been popularly called as ‘Sleeping Giant’ and now with the rise of globalization, it is reaping the fruits of it. Countries like Rwanda have defied the odds predicted by Western countries. People should stop looking Africa as the world’s charity bowl and rather start investing in it. India, being the forerunner, plays a key role in building up African economy particularly in nations like Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Mozambique, and Mauritius. Given the pandemic-negative news hovering over Africa, they need to do a lot more to be considered as the modernized economy.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author. They do not reflect the opinions or views of Krea University or its members.

RBI's Conventional Weapon For Modern Warfare

The blog is written by Aviral Singh. The Author is a MBA student of IFMR GSB at Krea University

Businesses across India have come to a grinding halt as they fight a prolonged war against Covid-19. This disruption has caused serious cashflow problems for various firms across sectors. At the forefront of this backlash are Non-Banking Financial Companies. After the fall of IL&FS, the lenders have been wary of lending money to them and with lockdown in place, it is bound to hit their customers who mainly belong from semi-formal sectors of infrastructure industry as the demand for property goes down. Adding fuel to the fire was the decision of RBI last month which obliged them to give moratorium of three months to their borrowers citing the reason that many of them belong to that part of the economy which will be worst hit due to this pandemic however it left the banks (Major source of funding for NBFCs) with the choice to decide on their discretion to pass on the benefit of the moratorium to NBFCs and given the poor credit history of the majority of them most of the banks were reluctant to pass the benefit of the moratorium to these companies. That came as a double whammy for cash strapped companies, on the one hand, it has blocked their source of income as people will avoid paying their debts back due to the seizure of business activities as well as uncertainties in the future business scenario and on the other hand it has forced them to pay their debts and bond payments despite their poor financials, hence taking away more liquidity.

What if these NBFCs delay their bond payment for this period and payback later?

There’s a clearly defined rule in bond markets which obliges the issuer of the bond to make the required repayment on the date at which their bond matures and if they fail to do so the bond is put under the category of default which can lead the company to get a credit rating of “D” hence closing all gates for it to borrow in the future. So that is a complete NO for a company given the current liquidity crisis.

RBI decided to lend the banks Rs 1 Lakh crore in four equal tranches (25000 crores) starting from March 27 till April 17 2020. Under this, if the bank bids for any amount it was eligible to get it at the current repo rate (Subject to change as per changes in repo rate in future) for a period of 3 years. After securing the amount the bank was to purchase fresh bonds of NBFCs, Corporates & PSUs in next 30 days and if it fails to do so they were to pay 2% higher interest. In order to ensure that the banks purchase bonds from as many entities as possible, they were restricted to buy not more than 10 % of the allocated amount from a single entity. They were also directed to use only 50% of their allocated fund for new issues whereas the rest should be used for purchase from secondary markets. The banks were given the facility of no intermediate repayments but were supposed to pay back the money taken from RBI at maturity along with the interest.

This opened the way for injection of liquidity for NBFCs as now they can issue new bonds which had a buyer and given that the banks borrowed the money from RBI at the current rate of 4.4% the banks had an opportunity to purchase bonds which gave them the opportunity to earn 6-7% of interest on the amount invested in non banking financial companies if held till maturity the deal looked enticing but as the credit risk associated with NBFCs were huge most of the money by banks were deployed to financially stable large corporations and public sector undertakings leaving the crisis of non-banking sector companies unattended.

RBI brings TLTRO 2.0, Says NBFC only!!

This time the RBI wanted to make sure that the benefits of TLTRO allocations should reach NBFCs so it put forward the condition that the money cannot be allocated in buying corporate bonds and banks can only purchase NBFCs bonds and it introduced more categories and conditions this time to make sure that NBFCs of all size got the intended liquidity push.

RBI decided to allocate Rs 50000 crore under TLTRO 2.0 which will be given in two equal tranches with the initial bid on 23rd April 2020. This time the banks were directed to follow some additional condition in deploying this capital. 10% of the issued fund will be earmarked for Microfinanciers, 15% of the issued fund should be used to purchase the bonds of NBFCs with assets worth of Rs 500 crore or below, 25% of the allocated money should be used to purchase bonds of NBFCs with asset size of Rs 500 Cr- 5000 Cr and the remaining 50% were at the discretion of Bank to be allocated as and how they would choose to. The banks were now free to purchase as much as they want from any company and any market (Primary or Secondary) and also the minimum time given to allocating the funds was increased from 30 to 45 days.

How’s the josh shown by banks?

Unlike expected by RBI, It instead got a cold shoulder from banks as only 14 bids worth Rs 12,850 crore came in as against Rs 25000 crore which was up for offer which was way less than the 18 bids of Rs 1.14 trillion which were received on April 9 during the TLTRO 1.0 (Remember in TLTRO 1.0 banks were allowed to deploy the allocated fund to purchase bonds of corporates and PSUs) clearly showing that even the relaxation in certain criteria wasn’t able to push banks in buying NBFC bonds due to the threat of credit risk despite for a great opportunity to earn higher returns. The banks wanted to play safe.

What did the Bankers argue to support their behaviour?

The bankers have been complaining that it isn’t an easy job to find investment-grade papers of these lower varieties and given the risk of being penalized if they are unable to allocate the money after borrowing from the bank as they are unsure of the timely returns, they avoided bidding for TLTRO. The situation would have been different for them if there has been no categorization by RBI in allocating the funds which currently mandates them to allocate a certain percentage in low rates papers. (However, if not for these rules the whole purpose of liquidity injection in small and severely hit NBFCs would have been defeated). Too much of subdivision has scared away the bankers. They have suggested that instead of being asked to just purchase bonds which is time-consuming they could also be allowed to give loans to NBFCs & MFIs. Some also suggest that TLTRO 2.0 should be priced at 3.75% which is the new overnight rate giving them an opportunity to make good profit from financially better-positioned companies hence helping them to hedge the risk of losing money by investing in weaker ones.

The road ahead for NBFCs

Approximately Rs. 63000 crore worth of commercial papers and non-convertible debentures is going to mature for big NBFCs in the course of next six months which means even if banks will buy Rs 25000 crore worth of bond it would only suffice for half of their money requirements the other half has to be brought in through other routes like bank loans, the recollection of loans and selling its bonds to retail investors and mutual funds which in the given scenario is easier said than done. Which in a nutshell has been successful in sending cold shivers to the companies in this sector and has sent RBI back to contemplation mode for planning another way to provide liquidity push to this sector

What do the experts and industry veterans have to say?

From what I was able to read, hear and extract out of many experts through news and social media is that given the scenario if RBI really needs to make a ground impact on this one than it could look west for guidance (US Fed). In the United States, the Federal Reserve Bank directly buys commercial papers unlike RBI which use a pass-through vehicle like TLTRO which help it in keeping the credit risk at bay (Risk hedged to Bank)

That RBI should open a direct window for NBFCs and Mutual Funds ( I know Franklin Debt Fund Fiasco came to your mind) instead of offering liquidity through banks, Yes I sense you this sounds a radical measure and needs much deliberation to think about its practical viability but given that lately, we have banks shying away even from some of the financially sound NBFCs (Many of them with capital adequacy ratio of 18% or above) it is high time that RBI must lead from the front to rescue this cash-starved sector and I close as I quote the words of Finshots ( Providing finest financial insights daily) here in the context of the central bank of India in this hour of crisis “Maybe, just maybe, what this country needs is a Dark Knight, a silent guardian, a watchful protector”

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author. They do not reflect the opinions or views of Krea University or its members.