
Financials Are In and So Are Markets
There have been some $8 billion worth of cross-border mergers and acquisitions in the financial space this year so far

On Episode 707 of The Core Report, financial journalist Govindraj Ethiraj talks to Vikas Bansal, CEO at Amazon Pay as well as Nikhil Varma, Technical Lead, India at Algorand.
SHOW NOTES
(00:00) The Take
(07:14) Financials are in and so are markets
(08:43) Gold prices ease off but not enough for Diwali
(09:26) US-China squabble again, more flights from India to China
(10:38) How women entrepreneurs are driving growth in payments
(24:11) The India Energy Stack and Blockchain
NOTE: This transcript contains the host's monologue and includes interview transcripts by a machine. Human eyes have gone through the script but there might still be errors in some of the text, so please refer to the audio in case you need to clarify any part. If you want to get in touch regarding any feedback, you can drop us a message on [email protected].
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Good morning, it's Monday, the 20th of October, and this is Govindraj Ethiraj broadcasting and streaming weekdays from Mumbai, India's financial capital. And before we start off, this is Diwali week, so here's wishing all of you a very happy Diwali, wherever you are, and also a prosperous new year ahead. And also to remind you that we will be on a very short Diwali break, that's tomorrow and day after, and we'll thus return with normal programming on Thursday, the 23rd of October.
The Take: how far should India go in joining the AI frenzy?
Google on Tuesday said it would invest about $15 billion over five years to set up an artificial intelligence data centre in Andhra Pradesh, its biggest investment there. Google has committed to spending about $85 billion this year to build out data centre capacity worldwide. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier, even as big tech companies are ramping up their infrastructure to meet a booming demand for AI services.
Now, the data centre campus in the port city of Visakhapatnam of Vizag will have an initial capacity of one gigawatt, according to reports. Now, the term gigawatt used somewhat interchangeably between data centres and units of power is because power is the critical driver of data centres. So in this case, it would mean the data centre would consume 1,000 megawatts of power or one gigawatt of power.
A NITI.io from the Government of India document says that Andhra Pradesh has about 30,000 megawatt or about 30 gigawatts of capacity. Roughly 10,000 of this is generated by wind and solar sources, and the balance comes from gas and cold, and that split is important and we'll come to that shortly. A state electricity plan from two years ago bases its energy projections on growth in leading cities of Andhra Pradesh like Vizag, Vijayawada, Guntur, Tirupati, and growth also in industrial corridors, technology park, lift irrigation schemes, new airports, and seaports.
Needless to add, there is no mention of data centres at that point. Overall, energy demand is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate of about 6.6%, according to the same plan. Now, Andhra may or may not see a deficit in power capacity, but power is fungible and can be pulled in from neighbouring states, so that's not really the issue.
But Andhra is not alone as a region which is seeing new and energy-guzzling data centres dropping out of the sky, almost. According to the data centre map, the United States has over 4,000 data centres compared to about 269 in India right now. China, France, Australia, and Canada are ahead of India, but only slightly, though China has about 379 data centres, Germany 486, and the United Kingdom about 495.
Now, the numbers don't reflect the pace of construction for new data centres, which is arguably very high in many countries, including China. Data centres have been around for some years in their current form, but the mad rush for new data centre capacity is largely driven by the AI revolution, which in turn is driving increased demand for power. So much so that in the United States, there are projects where power generation projects are simultaneously coming up with data centres.
The Wall Street Journal also says that in West Texas, natural gas-fired power generation is under construction as part of the $500 billion Stargate project from OpenAI and Oracle. Gas turbines are in use at Colossus I and II massive data centres of Elon Musk's ex-AI project in Tennessee, and more than a dozen Equinix data centres across the country are using fuel cells for power, says the Wall Street Journal, which also adds that America should add about 80 gigawatts of new power generation capacity to keep pace with AI, as well as cloud computing, crypto-industrial demand, and electrification trends, and it quotes technology from ICF. Currently, America is building less than 65 gigawatts, so the gap, which is about 15 gigawatts, is apparently enough to power two Manhattan's during the hottest parts of summer, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Now, India has caught up in power generation capacity and ability to meet demand in recent years, and now stands at about 480 gigawatts. Estimates by organisations like the Council on Energy, Environment, and Water say existing under-construction and planned generation capacity will be adequate to meet power demand by 2030. Official figures say most Indian households are electrified at this time.
Presumably, demand projections drawn out by experts incorporate the additional power demand as aspirations rise and households see more white and brown goods, for example. But most demand projections may not have accounted for AI investments, but data centre capacity must be viewed through a few additional lenses. The first and the most basic is how much of this AI hype will we see turn into reality? Remember, for example, an AI search will use 10 times more power than a regular Google search.
Now, this will change over time, but AI applications too are becoming more and more complex and diverse, including using video. But there are also questions being asked about how much of this AI frenzy that we're seeing right now will actually deliver real-world outcomes, or at least to what extent, in a foreseeable future. Countries like America will eventually adjust for overcapacity or overinvestment, because a lot of it is driven by private capital.
But even in America, there are questions about demand spikes caused by data centres, which distort power costs for regular consumers in some areas. A Bloomberg report from last month says wholesale electricity is costing close to 270% more than it did five years ago in areas near data centres, like in Baltimore. Now, India, of course, may not see the kind of arms race that countries like America are seeing in new data centres, and it is unlikely that power rates will jump like this, at least disproportionately or proportionately, though there could be other grid distortions.
Which brings us to the second. How much investment should India direct or welcome towards data centres, and what could that do to current plans of power generation and capacity additions? The other problem is more environmental. The Hindu newspaper quoted the Human Rights Forum saying that establishing a high-energy, heat-intensive complex of this magnitude in Andhra Pradesh in such a terrain is ecologically reckless.
The HRF argues that these data centres will be a threat to residents of Visakhapatnam and Annakapalli, as centres of this scale are notoriously water and energy hungry, consuming billions of litres annually for cooling and maintenance across the world. And water, by the way, is an issue, which we didn't dive into much in the take today. Moreover, the HRF says, in Visakhapatnam or Vizag, where groundwater depletion, erratic rainfall, and climate variability have already created acute water stress, such a project will almost certainly intensify it.
Now, there are other arguments as well about the low number of jobs data centres create, but that's a different discussion. Now, India does need a more comprehensive and current look at AI-led infrastructure investment for sure, and one that places it in context of our own needs of economic growth. The argument that all data centres can run on renewable energy does not fully address the original question of what is the best use of capital and resources, whether it's private or public or both, and what it will actually deliver.
And that brings us to the top stories and themes.
Financials are in, and so are markets.
Gold prices ease off, but not enough for Diwali.
US-China squabbles again, and more flies from India to China and back.
And how women entrepreneurs are driving growth in payments.
Markets Are Firm
Now, there is a rising interest in financials and lenders as more investors, large and small, take punts on India's economy and the funding needed for it, and more on that a little later in the show as well. There have been some $8 billion worth of cross-border mergers and acquisitions in the financial space this year so far, Reuters said, quoting a Grant Thornton report. Now, this includes the latest announcement by Dubai-based Emirates NBD, which bought a 60% stake, or rather buying a 60% stake in private bank RBL in a deal valued at about $3 billion, also the largest overseas financial sector acquisition so far.
RBL Bank, by the way, began life as Ratnakar Bank in Kolhapur in Maharashtra in 1943. Stock markets are firm again on Friday, hitting a 52-week high in the session. At close, the Sensex was up 484 points to 83,952, and the NSE Nifty 50 was up 124 points to 25,709.
The Nifty Mid Cap 100 and Small Cap 100 were, however, lower at 0.5 and 0.05%. Now, gold prices have eased off, but not enough to help Diwali gold shoppers back home. Gold prices fell by more than 2% on Friday after hitting another record high, crossing $4,300 per ounce, thanks to a firmer dollar, and also US President Donald Trump's comment that a full-scale tariff on China would be unsustainable, according to a Reuters report. Nevertheless, gold did gain close to 5% last week.
Elsewhere, Reuters also reported that India's gold reserves have crossed the $100 billion mark for the first time, according to the Reserve Bank of India's latest foreign exchange reserves data. This is despite the Reserve Bank slowing down its gold purchases this year, but on the other hand, as we all know, prices have risen sharply, close to 60% this year, and thus the value of everyone's gold holdings has gone up, including, of course, the Reserve Bank. The share of gold in India's total reserves has now climbed to close to 15%, and which is the highest since 1996-97, that's 1996-97, according to traders who spoke to Reuters.
And gold share in India's foreign exchange reserves has also almost doubled in the last 10 years, from less than 7% to nearly 15%.
Big Results
Amongst major quarterly results last week, Reliance Industries missed quarterly profit estimates on Friday as steady gains in its retail and digital services arms failed to offset the weakness in its legacy oil-to-chemicals business, according to Reuters.
While revenue from the oil-to-chemicals segment grew year-on-year thanks to a recovery in fuel margins, downstream chemicals were weak thanks to a persistent global oversupply. Interestingly, Reliance said its profit didn't grow as much as it could have due to a fall in polyester business margins after tariff-related concerns dampened global textile demand. Now that applies to India as well.
Meanwhile, HDFC Bank reported a higher-than-expected profit for the second quarter on Saturday on steady loan growth and higher trading income, even as lending margins remained weak, according to Reuters once again. Elsewhere on the geopolitical front, there may be a fresh thaw in US-China relationships after the latest round of mutual threats, that was last week. Thanks to some, if not all of this, India-China relations continue to be on the mend.
Several flights are being started or reinstated, including a Kolkata-Guangzhou flight by Indigo and a Shanghai-Delhi flight by China Eastern next month.
Growth In Payments
We spoke of an increased interest in lending businesses and the finance sector as a whole.
Linked to that, obviously, is the retail payments industry, which straddles one end of the credit spectrum. Amazon Pay and Kearney have released another edition of their report titled How Urban India Pays, which looks at evolving payment behaviour of consumers. So, overall digital payment volumes in urban India were up 35% in the last year, while offline digital payments in non-metros are now almost at par, at 50%, that is, with about 62% being the rate for metros.
Quite interestingly, 80% of women entrepreneurs have embraced digital payments, according to the report. I reached out to Vikas Bansal, CEO of Amazon Pay, the over 2,000 crore rupee arm of Amazon that was first set up in 2007 globally, and began by asking him to talk about what was changing or changed in the latest report and the role of women and women entrepreneurs in this change.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Vikas Bansal: This report is our effort to bring some insights and leading payment trends for the market. What we see today is going to become data maybe in two to five years, right? So this is kind of a really leading indicator.
This is a very broad study covering almost 120 plus cities and over 6,000, you know, respondents and interviews and lots of things. So this gives us a very good sense of overall what's going on in the India market, you know, from a digital perspective. What's exciting, as you said, is that Bharat, right, this digital payments revolution is now real in Bharat, where these small towns have caught up on digital payments, where almost 50% of consumers are using digital payments.
And then metro, that number is 62%. So that gap has reduced very significantly. And we've seen that over the last couple of years, that gap is shrinking and shrinking.
That's one. Two is we went deeper into women. And what's very exciting for me personally is that the women are now starting to lead this transformation with almost 89% of the women preferring digital payments.
When they are setting up their businesses, their entrepreneurs, 90% of them, you know, and 80% of them are running their business digitally. So that is very exciting. Young India, right, the Gen Z and millennials formed a large part of our population and our rising middle class.
And what's very exciting there is one, their openness to try the new forms of digital payments like tap and pay, voice payments, buy now pay later, that's increasing. The second is their desire and affinity to get responsible credit, whether it is through credit cards or buy now pay later is kind of increasing. So those were like two, three key ones, which I feel very excited about.
The other thing, last thing I will mention is earlier, this trend used to be about online purchases, high ticket purchases, right now it's everywhere. Things like digital utilities and bill payments and subscriptions, 90%, like that is like all your everyday purchases or everyday expenses. People are now saying like, I want to go fully digital, get completely cash out of the system.
So I think some of these things are kind of leading indicators of where we are headed. We are headed to a fully digital economy in the next five to 10 years. Right.
Govindraj Ethiraj: So there are multiple payment types right now within the digital payments ecosystem of which you are one. And each one is different in a way because yours is, let's say, where I load up money and then I pay someone as opposed to maybe another payment path or gateway where I'm paying directly. So how are you seeing trends within this in terms of how people are using it, including your own product?
Vikas Bansal: Just to talk about Amazon Pay, one of our key things is to build the most trusted and rewarding experience that is very inclusive, right? Because to your point, we are not only just a UPI app, we want to be able to provide customers the options, which starts on the top end when they want to pay with a credit card with unlimited rewards. And on the other side, when they would just want to pay through UPI, right from their bank account.
And then something in the middle, which is about pay later or topping up their wallet. So we are not just where you just drop a wallet and use it. In fact, if you can load up your credit card on a wallet interface and then use your credit card for all your payments, or you can just link your bank account and then you can pay through UPI or you can load your wallet, as you mentioned.
So I think one of the key things is we're the only kind of player who's kind of going out there to say, look, we want to give you the most inclusive payment options, right? The other thing that we've done very recently, Govind, is we're saying, how do we simplify your life? Because today you're there to live your life and you have to hunt for your payment methods.
You have to look for your best deals. You have to look for your subscription bills, not forget to pay and get late fees for your tickets and other things. Why don't we bring it all?
Bringing it all to one simple interface is what we've done. Now you not only find all your payment methods, which you can set up, we can even find your bills, your subscriptions, your tickets, your everything. And then we remind you every time your payment is due, we remind you so that you can live your life and not worry about it.
Right. I think India is very unique in a way that each customer has multiple payment options. Like, for example, for me, I have a credit card, I have a buying operator, I have a wallet and I have I mean, I might be on this side where I'm like a super user, but a lot of Indians have multiple payment methods and they're not sure on what payment to use, what payment method to use for what purchase, right, or what payment.
What we've done is through our technology and JNI interfaces, we've made it very simple. We will do all the work. We will tell you, Govind, when you're on Amazon.in, you're buying a phone, this is what you should use. When you're paying a bill, this is what you should do. When you're in a store buying a tie, you know, this is what you should use, which gives you the best offer and best experience. Right.
So all of these things are our effort to kind of bring you a very inclusive payment method, which takes complexity out of you and makes your life simple.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And if you want to look at the kind of offerings you have on Amazon Pay in India, how is that different from, let's say, other countries or put differently? What are the unique features about India and the way you've designed the India product and offering?
Vikas Bansal: See, first of all, like in India, we started like we've done in any other locale, which is to solve payment friction on Amazon, right, for e-commerce. That's how we were born. And when I remember back in the day, almost one in two payments used to fail.
It's like, this is really good. We've done all the work, but payments, customers are not able to pay to a point that now it's less than one in 10. Right.
So there's a huge leap we've made. And then as part of this, we said, look, we built an awesome experience. Why don't we let customers use it for other payments, for all the other payments, whether they're making bills, whether they are paying an offline store or an online store, can we use the same experience?
We've expanded into use cases. Then we also said India is really credit starved. Can we really help them with the credit?
And then, you know, things like buying an automatic and other things came in. Right. So and then we built all of this together, which I talked about payments to see this kind of an experience is something we've not done anywhere else.
India is the one where we are really, very bullish about and kind of building these experiences and kind of also then if this works, can we then take it globally, you know, in line without even in India, we are thinking about building in India and taking it globally. So to answer your question, we haven't done it to that level. And we haven't done to that level of scale, you know, that we've done in India.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. And let me come to women. I mean, there are some interesting findings about how women, for example, don't switch payments and they're more cautious and disciplined, which I guess is intuitive from other findings and studies and so on.
But how does the behaviour of women in the context of spending affect or let's say influence the way the payments ecosystem works or has evolved in India?
Vikas Bansal: What makes me very excited is I think of two things which I was just saying. One is that now the majority of women are running their businesses digitally, right? Eighty percent and more, which is fascinating.
The second is the women are really taking charge of their finances, which is never the case. Fifty seven percent right now, it's in the majority, are taking charge of their finances, and are doing their independent financial planning. You know, there are like a lot of stories, you know, but they are like I hear industry mentors that go out and talk to these young women entrepreneurs.
There was a story that somebody was talking about where they were not only running their payments, kind of accepting digitally, but their entire operations, right, in terms of supply chain, in terms of invoicing, reconciliation, and then billing, everything was done completely digitally. And she's a very young woman entrepreneur, right? And then when you hear some of these stories, that gets very exciting, which I think is something which to me is very good.
Obviously, you also mentioned that women tend to be more loyal. What we've also seen is that women tend to be more loyal. So if they like an experience, you know, they stick to it.
And then which is also important as an industry is like, you know, how do we build very seductive experiences and then take it forward?
Govindraj Ethiraj: And what are the reasons that this is happening? I mean, again, like I said, there could be some intuitive answers. But why is it that 80 percent of women entrepreneurs, at least in your survey, prefer digital payments for their businesses with, you know, UPI cards, wallets and so on?
Vikas Bansal: Yeah, I think that two, three things, right? One is to go to the basics about trust. It's about convenience and it's about a rewarding experience.
That's what Amazon Pay is also known for. Now, trust is the core of this is to say, like, are the people feeling comfortable to trust an app for their financial and their payment needs? And then we've seen that trust has gone up because we personally, as Amazon Pay, have done a good job of sort of saying, you know, anytime there's a transaction, we look at thousand plus variables to make sure that transaction is secure.
We make sure we just recently launched, you know, biometrics. So we made it even more secure to say anytime you're trying to pay, you know, we announced in the GFF, you know, we do biometric authentication. Right.
And then we stay ahead of the fraudsters is like the key, the pillar of this, right? Trust and security. The second is convenience to say, look, our endeavour has always been like, let's make this as convenient as cash.
Like today, I say it is like the most convenient option is cash. You just hand it over, you know, at the time of payment. And there's no friction.
Right. But then obviously, there are other fictions of, you know, security trust gets lost. You know, you have to deposit your bank account.
So convenience is very important. This is where making it very intuitive, recommending a good option, all of that is important. And then on the reward side, as I said, it is about how we make it like each transaction counts.
So we try very hard to say not only do you get the best experience, but we make it count for you in terms of one of the other things we recently launched is this notion of personalized rewards. So that's the core. The other thing, which is a big factor is the India level, what the government of India and the regulator RBI and other regulators are doing is building a very inclusive ecosystem, right?
Which is started with Jam, which is Jandan accounts, right? Aadhaar and mobile, but then also expanded into India stack. And I think what I like is that we are not building walled gardens.
We are really building this stack and technologies which are open for all. And when that happens, this is where the real power we unlock to the real like the hinterland of Bharat, right? It's just about focussing on basics, which we are doing and the industry is doing, and then to get that ecosystem kind of proliferation through whether Jam or India stack.
I feel like we are onto something really big.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. And that's the sort of infrastructure on which you're building. Last question, Vikas, if you want to do this survey next year, and I guess you will, what are the two or three questions that you would want to ask that you're still looking for answers?
Vikas Bansal: Yeah, I think one would be like, how's financial education and literacy? How has it gone beyond? Has it really gone to Bharat too?
So we get more penetration in that. I want to see that 50% number go to 70, 80%, right? That is one.
The second part of it is like trust and security is also important to say, are people feeling more and more comfortable in transacting digitally? I think the third one, which we are very excited about as a Democrat as a credit in the GFF finance minister also spoke about is, can we empower true credit women, MSMEs, right? Medium and small scale enterprises.
And then even on the green financing side, I think credit is going to be the backbone, but what has to be done digitally, it has to be done responsibly and it has to be done transparently, right? I think we want to see how deep has credit gone into India? Those three things I look for are trust and security, financial literacy and education, and then credit.
So I think we will.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Vikas, it was a pleasure speaking with you. Thank you so much for joining me.
Vikas Bansal: Thank you Govind for having me. And it's my pleasure.
IES and Blockchain
It's Monday and it's time for our blockchain segment.
The proposed India Energy Stack, being developed by the country's Ministry of Power, hopes to digitally integrate India's fragmented power ecosystem from producers and grid operators to consumers, exchanges, and regulators. The IES will enable peer-to-peer energy trading, among other things. The foundation of the India Energy Stack will be tokenization.
So, what is tokenization and how does it work and can it work? I reached out to Nikhil Verma, Technical Lead, India at Algorand, and I asked him to explain how tokenization works and how it could scale up.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Nikhil Varma: The concept of tokenization has evolved over the times and just to kind of talk about the tokenization, the construct that you're talking about, it is essentially converting the real world assets that we have now, this could be energy, this could be gold, this could be real estate, this could even be currency, into something digital and then use that digital asset trading and basically storing value. So that's the key underlying principle behind tokenization when we hear of this world currently.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Why is it important today in terms of how it's playing out or are we seeing more applications now than ever before?
Nikhil Varma: Well, we are living in a digital era, right? So essentially most of the transactions, most of the business commerce is done digitally. So there has to be a mechanism to be able to turn these immovable assets into something where we would be able to get more liquidity, we'll be able to get more participation when people could kind of buy and sell things much more easily and that's why tokenization becomes a crucial part.
Now that having been said, I've said that in several forums, tokenization is a legal process. So it's not that you and I can sit together and say, okay, let's tokenise this particular asset and then we can start turning it into liquid and start making money out of it. There has to be a regulatory oversight on tokenization.
So most of the tokenization that we hear, the genesis or the starting point of tokenization in any country, comes in from a centralised entity. And these are the people who kind of decide as to how this asset has to be mobilised to be able to get more liquidity. So in India's case, you would have heard most of the tokenization being regulated by SEBI or RBI.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. And what are the sort of challenges of scaling this and also the challenges with centralised or other traditional centralised systems?
Nikhil Varma: Yeah. I mean, centralised systems, of course, are absolutely a requirement to be able to put in the regulatory hooks around things. But what happens with this kind of tokenization, it's like a private club where you have digital assets, but it's only the members who will be able to participate here.
If you are envisioning a marketplace in which we are living in right now, of course, we've seen lots of precautionary or protectionist measures happening all around the world. But the idea is that how can this asset be something which is available to a global marketplace yet be regulatory compliant? When we talk about a centralised system, that's the whole idea.
But the centralized system is not scalable. And hence, you would need a system like a blockchain where this digital asset can be mobilised for a more global audience, for a better marketplace access to be able to kind of bring in different kinds of participants or investors.
Govindraj Ethiraj: And what's a good example of that, which let's say most people would know about where that scale up has happened and we've seen the benefits of going towards blockchain or something like blockchain to achieve it?
Nikhil Varma: In fact, most of the stable coins going in the current day actually follow these kinds of frameworks, right? They might have something which is an off-chain or a private chain kind of a setup where they have the regulatory processes codified. OK, so essentially making sure, you know, there is a KYC, there are all these things that need to be done from the regulation perspective.
Like, you know, if you go to Europe, there is MICA, which is kind of defining everything. So there is a stable coin platform, a stable coin generation system in the algorithm, which is called Quantos. Now, what Quantos does is they follow all the MICA regulations in a private setup, yet mobilise that private asset into the public chain to be able to leverage the market-based benefits.
So that's mostly what we are seeing, not directly putting every single thing into the public chain, which might have a bit of a regulatory problem. And I guess that brings us to hybrids.
Govindraj Ethiraj: What are hybrid blockchain models and how do they play a role in the scaling part?
Nikhil Varma: The initial idea with which we started out in the blockchain world was either we play private, which is essentially a closed-loop system, or we play public, which is a very open-based system. When we realised that, you know, a hybrid system actually brings in the best of both worlds, the purpose of private was to be able to abstract certain things, to be able to lock certain things, to be able to manage certain things, govern certain things. Because if you are building enterprise-based systems, we have to have the regulatory pieces into play.
It can't be a decentralised group of people who are running the governance and say, this is how this tokenization should play out. That might not work from a regulatory perspective. But if you are able to use the regulatory piece in a private system, and through a bridge or a connection, be able to mobilise that into a public chain, then you kind of get the best of both worlds.
It's something like, you know, I talked about a private club, right? A hybrid system would be something like having a digital passport, and you have the right kind of visa. So essentially, you get the right kind of visas in the private blockchain, and then you kind of bring in mobility.
After getting the right kind of visa, you're mobile, you can go anywhere, because you have the visa, you can kind of take it to different places, essentially.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Give us an example of a hybrid model that you are working on or have worked on.
Nikhil Varma: So we are currently looking at different hybrid models that could possibly work with this tokenization initiative. In India, we are absolutely looking at frameworks where, you know, we can have the DPDP Act, we can have the financial regulations which are proposed by RBI to be able to play out in that private space, but yet build a connect of this digital asset to come out in the public blockchain space. One of the things that might not be exactly, from a tokenization perspective, one of the things that we are looking at is in RegTech, we are looking at how we can create a layer two on existing platforms.
We've spoken about DPDP several times in the past, how we will be able to create a regulation technology, which would be in a private space, of course, and would kind of work with all the data sets of the organisation, yet have a public chain perspective to be able to scale up trust, to be able to reach out to customers, to be able to do different kinds of things. As I mentioned, one solution that we have in Algorand blockchain is Qantas and a few others who are actually looking at these kinds of frameworks to be able to have something which actually is regulatory friendly.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Nikhil Varma: Thank you, Govind.

There have been some $8 billion worth of cross-border mergers and acquisitions in the financial space this year so far

There have been some $8 billion worth of cross-border mergers and acquisitions in the financial space this year so far