Trump Reminds Everyone He Is Still A Market Mover
Donald Trump wrote on his two social platforms that China was becoming very hostile with the rest of the world, especially when it comes to rare earth minerals
On Episode 701 of The Core Report, financial journalist Govindraj Ethiraj talks to Satish Dondapati, Fund Manager - ETF at Kotak Asset Management Company Ltd as well as Nikhil Varma, Technical Lead, India at Algorand.
SHOW NOTES
(00:00) Stories of the Day
(01:00) Trump reminds everyone he is still a market mover
(08:08) Fresh signs of overheating in IPO market as franchise owner of bankrupt company’s brand lists at discount
(09:12) LG Electronics to list after garnering record Rs 440,000 crore for Rs 11,600 crore offer
(10:27) How a gap between international and domestic silver prices caused a mutual fund to shut its silver ETF
(20:09) Digital advertisers have to change their strategy with new privacy rules that protect you, decoding the impact
Algorand Summit: https://algobharat.in/road2impact2025/
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 13th of October and this is Govindraj Ethiraj broadcasting and streaming weekdays from Mumbai, India's financial capital
Our top stories and themes.
Donald Trump reminds everyone he's still the market mover to fear.
LG Electronics to list after garnering a record 440,000 crore rupees for 11,600 crore initial public offer.
How a gap between international and domestic silver prices caused a mutual fund to shut its silver exchange-traded fund for now.
Fresh signs of overheating in an IPO market as franchise owner of a bankrupt company's brand lists at discount.
And digital advertisers have to change their strategy with new privacy rules that protect you, decoding the impact.
It's The Trump Effect Again
Donald Trump loves reminding global markets that he can turn fortunes upside down with one post and he had a fresh go on Friday. On Friday morning, the S&P 500 was less than a few points from another all-time high and then came that post from Donald Trump and then two trillion dollars in market value was wiped out.
On Friday morning, he wrote on his two social platforms that China was becoming very hostile with the rest of the world, especially when it comes to its control of rare earth minerals or metals. He accused China of holding the world captive because of its monopoly of these resources. And then he said one of the policies that the United States was calculating at this point was a massive increase of tariffs on Chinese products coming into the United States of America.
And later, he said he would put an additional 100 percent tariff on China from November 1st, as well as place export controls on critical software. China said the U.S. should stop threatening it with higher tariffs and urged further negotiations to resolve outstanding trade issues and also said it would not hesitate to retaliate should Washington persist in these moves. Earlier, China had added new port fees on U.S. ships, started an antitrust investigation into Qualcomm, Inc., and unveiled another round or rather sweeping new curbs on its export of rare earths and other critical minerals.
Now, China's curbs are different and they're not tariff-based, but they're more about customs control. Speaking about Qualcomm, its president and CEO Cristiano Armand was in India over the weekend and also met Prime Minister Narendra Modi and discussed semiconductors. Now, coming back to Beijing, it justified its moves as defensive actions and accused the U.S. of introducing new restrictive measures targeting China since talks between the two in Madrid in September, according to a Ministry of Commerce statement on Sunday, according to Bloomberg.
Last month, the U.S. Commerce Department had unveiled a dramatic expansion of its export controls, closing loopholes in current measures to block Beijing from cutting its ships, according to that Bloomberg report. Now, all of this, or at least the run-up to it, had markets flipped over. CNBC quoted bespoke investment groups saying that about $2 trillion in from the U.S. stock market was erased by that single post.
The S&P 500 lost about 2.7 percent, and this was the worst performance since early April, when the stock market was again or once again in the throes of a sell-off from the so-called Liberation Day rollout of higher duties for almost all countries, according to CNBC. The Nasdaq also saw its worst performance and fell about 3.5 percent, and Nasdaq had touched an all-time high before the Trump post on Friday's The markets, of course, have been assuming things will all work out with China in the medium term and, of course, long term, on whom there is a 40 percent tariff in imports into the United States. Maybe they will work out, but we don't know.
Trump and the Chinese leader Xi Jinping were supposed to meet at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit at the end of this month, and let's see what happens there. One of the more positive outcomes of this was that Brent crude is also down and is now quoting below $63 a barrel. So what will happen on Monday? Well, markets could be weak across Asia, though India may not face the same impact, because technically higher tariffs on China equalise the field somewhat, since it reduces the barriers for Indian exporters who are pitched or pitted against Chinese exporters, though it's always tough to strike deals or to project ahead when tariffs tend to swing so wildly.
Meanwhile, India's equities saw their biggest weekly gains in more than three months, thanks to IT and bank stocks and, of course, a slightly buoyant sentiment ahead of the earnings season, which drew in foreign investors, according to Reuters. The Nifty 50 and the Sensex were up about 1.6 percent last week, and this was their best performance in three months. On Friday, the two indices ended higher for the second straight trading session, thanks to bank and pharma stocks.
The Sensex opened lower by about 100 points, but then turned around and finally closed up 329 points at 82,501. The Nifty 50 was up 104 points to 25,285. The mid-cap was up 0.4 percent and the small cap 0.6 percent.
Now, foreign investors bought stocks worth about $208 million till Thursday this week amidst, according to Reuters, some hopes of earnings revival. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had also said he spoke to US President Donald Trump on Thursday, saying they reviewed good progress achieved in trade negotiations, so there is some hope there, and that's definitely an overhang on the market. So, foreign investors are net sellers of Indian equities in 2025 and worth about $18 billion so far this year, according to a Reuters report.
Inflows into mutual funds fell about 9 percent month-on-month to about Rs 30,422 in September as there was a sharp slowdown in sectoral and thematic funds, according to data from the Association of Mutual Funds in India, quoted by Reuters. SIP contributions rose a little over 4 percent to an all-time high of Rs 29,400 in September. Reuters also reported that some investors rotated into gold and silver exchange-traded funds and more on that shortly, which drew record monthly inflows of a little over Rs 8,000 and over Rs 5,000 crores.
Remember, we've got Diwali ahead and precious metal prices, including gold and silver, are soaring. IT stocks were up about 5 percent last week and were the biggest gainers, with TCS, or Tata Consultancy Services, better than expected revenue for the quarter. However, its plans to invest about $6-7 billion in setting up data centres pulled the stock down about 1.1 percent on Friday.
Now, data centres are cool investment propositions, but this is a larger question worth discussing for the moment. While returns on asset-light service businesses like software could be higher, what does one do if the future for software itself looks uncertain, limited or different, particularly for Indian IT services companies? For instance, Reuters quotes analysts saying TCS's return on equity stood at 51 percent and return on invested capital at about 80 percent last year. But the shift to a CapEx-heavy model, which is what a data centre is, may obviously put pressure on these metrics.
And thus, analysts say the AI data centre business could generate ROE or return on equity in the teens, which is far below the company's core business. But companies obviously have little choice but to diversify beyond working on the software side of AI applications, which they already are, and perhaps getting better at it. So if you are looking to get, as a company that is, a foot into the AI value chain, you could design or manufacture NVIDIA, AMD or Intel-grade chips.
But that's obviously a target for now for someone with limited or no legacy in chip making as a country and as a company. The only next big thing seems to be data centres where the chips will go into, which is a more localised phenomenon and demand for which could spike in the near future. Or you could buy into power companies or utilities who supply to these data centres, but then you've always got Tata Power within that group.
According to the Reuters report, TCS move comes at a time when India's data centre industry is predicted to grow at a fast pace. Real estate consultant Colliers says the country's data centre capacity is expected to more than triple to 4.5 gigawatts by 2030 from current levels. Elsewhere, the perils of an overheated IPO market are beginning to show, at least for now.
WeWork India management stock price was 3% lower in their trading debut on Friday as investors worried about steep valuations and governance risks, according to Reuters. The stock opened barely above the IPO offer price of Rs 648 and fell as much as 5% to 614. Now this is the curious part.
The company here licences its brand from a now bankrupt company in the US which is WeWork Global and it of course raised about Rs 338 million in that IPO that was subscribed about 1.15 times. Elsewhere, the rupee has fallen about 3.7% against the dollar this year and was quoted at Rs 88.78 on Friday, lower than the lifetime low. Could the rupee get stronger from here on? Well, there are or there are views emerging that it could.
Bank of America Global Research says the rupee's valuation has turned appealing after recent losses and could recover to about Rs 86 per dollar by the end of 2025.
The LG Mega IPO
Well, last week we argued that India should attract more foreign multinationals to list in India for many reasons including the fact that this helps companies cement their presence here and grow and thus help the economy also grow with it. Meanwhile, investors are waiting for an allotment of shares of LG Electronics, the appliances giant which got bids worth about Rs 440,000 crores or Rs 4.4 trillion for its Rs 11,600 crore IPO and that has passed the previous record held by Bajaj Housing Finance whose Rs 6,500 crore IPO drew bids worth about Rs 324,000 crores last year according to Business Standard.
LG's Indian Arm launched the 8th largest IPO in the domestic market and this was entirely an offer for sale of shares by the promoter which means all the funds that were raised would be repatriated to the parent company and nothing would go into the company here. Qualified institutional buyers led the charge and their quota was subscribed by about 166 times while the retail investor portion was subscribed about three and a half times or rather oversubscribed.
What's Happening With Silver?
Prices of silver exchange traded funds fell on Friday, a day after a sharp run up thanks to concerns of a premium over their indicative net asset value with one fund announcing a temporary suspension of lump sum and switch in investments.
So if you look at year to date prices, MCX spot silver prices is up 84% this year according to Bloomberg data and despite that pullback silver ETFs are still sharply higher up for the week up between 7.5 to 11% over the last five sessions and have gone up about 84 to 86% this year. Kotak Bindra Neutral Fund suspended its lump sum subscriptions in its silver exchange traded fund and will wait to see how supply improves after Diwali before resuming if so. The fund said it was halting new lump sum investments after market hours on Thursday as domestic silver prices had hit record highs trading at steep premiums over international levels due to a shortage of physical silver.
Silver prices have nearly doubled in 2025 going from about $29 an ounce in the end of 2024 and crossing $51 now thanks to many factors including geopolitical tensions and expectations of US rate cuts. Silver ETFs have also seen huge inflows as we mentioned this earlier. So why is this happening? I spoke with Satish Dondapati, fund manager at Kotak Bindra Neutral Fund who manages the silver and other exchange traded funds at his fund house and I asked him to explain what is going on.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Satish Dondapati: So, currently, if you see in the last couple of years, the investment demand in silver has gone up drastically, globally. In India also, you have seen that gold prices have gone up, crossed around $4,000 per ounce. Silver has to catch up.
People are expecting silver prices will also catch up to that level, in that proportionate level. Silver, basically, as a precious metal, has a dual advantage. It also acts as a safe level, plus it also has a huge industrial demand.
So, currently, if you see the industrial demand out of the total supply, approximately around 70% of the demand comes from industries, especially the new age industries like green energy, solar panels, semiconductors, and electronics, also AI. In these industries, they require silver, a huge amount for consumption. At the same time, investment demand also has increased.
One of the reasons is that since gold has appreciated more than $4,000, most people think that it has already appreciated. Now, silver is the next best choice, since the denomination is lower, like it is approximately 1.5% of the silver value, currently. Also, silver has not gone up since the last 30-40 years, it has not touched the historical highs.
So, the investment demand has increased, and a few years earlier, central banks used to buy only gold, physical gold. Now, since the last 2-3 years, central banks also started buying silver, so the demand has drastically increased with investment demand as well as industrial demand. So, this has led to an increase in prices since the last couple of years.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Okay. And why are we seeing a mismatch between physical and non-physical right now? You're talking about the ETFs.
Satish Dondapati: So basically, what exactly happens is that silver ETFs are there in the industry. So each silver ETF is backed by physical silver. So whenever there is a demand, normally there are market makers or the bullion dealers, normally they provide liquidity on exchange, they supply units to investors who come to buy on exchange.
Since the last couple of days, what exactly has been happening? In the spot market, there is a shortage of physical silver. So to supply silver units on exchange, you need a physical silver.
Because as I said, silver ETF units are backed by physical silver. So when you sell silver ETF units on exchange, you have to submit physical silver to AMC. AMC will keep those silver bars in their vault.
As there is no physical silver available in the spot market, and at the same time, the investment demand is high. That's why the exchange price of silver ETFs has traded at a premium of around 10-12% yesterday in the morning. Till the time this shortage of silver will be there in the spot market, I think the price will be going to trade premium on the exchange.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. Suppose, I mean, to someone who's trying to understand, for let's say every 1 lakh rupees worth of silver ETF that I own, let's say with Kotak Mutual Fund, or Kotak Silver ETF, there will be an equivalent amount of silver kept in the vault somewhere. Is there a time gap between my placing an order, getting those ETFs in my name versus the silver also getting transferred?
Satish Dondapati: How exactly it happens is basically you have to provide the silver on the same day. For example, as a market maker or an authorised participant, if I sold silver units on exchange, on the same day, I have to provide silver bars to the AMC. Then only AMC will create the silver units into a market maker or authorised participant DMAT account so that he can, on the next morning, deliver those units on exchange.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. So at any point of time, all exchange traded funds in silver will be backed up with silver and I'm assuming it's the same for gold as well.
Satish Dondapati: Yes, exactly. Each and every unit of silver ETF is backed by physical silver.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. So now there is a physical shortage in India, and you're saying that we're not able to import as well right now? Yes, exactly.
Satish Dondapati: So in the month of September, the bullion dealers or maybe industry has imported a huge amount of gold and silver, approximately double the number of August in September. But at the same time, there is a huge demand also in the physical market as well as in the investment environment in bars and coins and ETFs. Also during October to December, there are festival seasons as well as wedding seasons.
So one third of the gold and silver demand comes from this quarter only, if you compare with the full year, or every year it happens. So there is a huge demand, at the same time supply concerns are there. Also the investment demand in silver is more than compared to gold this time.
So that's why the exchange prices are trading at a premium. We have heard today that it is not only up to the Indian markets, globally also there are shortages of silver if you see at the current moment of time.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. And what you're telling people is that do not invest in our fund right now, because we cannot find the physical silver to back it up. Right.
Satish Dondapati: So we have two funds, one is a silver ETF and one is a silver fund. So normally in a silver fund, whatever the inflow we get, we invest in silver ETFs. Okay.
And when we calculate the NAB of the silver fund, we take the exchange closing price of the silver ETF. So since the silver ETF is trading at a premium at around 10 to 12%, yesterday it was trading at premium, now it is close to 7-8% premium. When I calculate the NAB of fund of fund, automatically that premium factored into the NAB of fund of fund.
So let's say for an example, today the silver ETF is trading at 10% premium, tomorrow let's say the supply increases in the spot market of silver, automatically that premium will go out and the silver ETF price will start trading at par. So investors invested yesterday at a 10% premium, the next day when the supply increases, automatically the NAB will come down to 10%. If in case silver prices are the same on both days.
For a short term, the underlying investor of the silver fund will have to take the losses for that one day or maybe till the time supply concerns are there. That's why we have stopped our silver fund for a fresh subscription, till the time the supply increases in the market.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. And you're saying that basically if you were to take money from investors, then you will have to pay a premium for that silver, which obviously you cannot recover from your own investors or unit holders. Right.
Satish Dondapati: So if any investor comes and invests in a silver fund, I have to buy at whatever the price prevailing on the stock market or I have to buy directly with any other bullion dealer. Now bullion dealers normally sell at a premium of around 10 to 15%. Currently, if you see there is a premium of around 15,000 plus compared to M6 prices in the spot market.
So I know that, you know, these prices will not prevail for a long time. When the supply comes, automatically this premium will go down to zero or maybe to one or two thousand rupees per kg in silver. So it is for a short term.
In a hurry, most of the investors normally see that if a silver price goes up as a FOMO thing, people get invested, whatever the price they will not see. So to protect the investor interest, we are also educating people that this is not a right price, it is trading at a premium and because of supply concern. So once the supply comes, automatically this premium will go away.
So better to wait and invest or before investing, just check the prices. If it is trading at a substantial premium, then don't invest. That's why the fund will stop the subscription.
SIPs will be there, it will continue as of now.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. And last question. So in your official statement, you've said that you are expecting things to settle down by the end of October.
And is that because you are seeing fresh supply or you feel that this is a one off situation?
Satish Dondapati: We have spoken to a few other bullion dealers and jewellers. What they are saying is that this festival season, they are seeing a huge demand. And earlier I said that a huge import happened in the month of September.
So most of the bullion dealers or most of the jewellers, they are actually keeping those silvers to supply on the Diwali and Dhanteras. So maybe because of the premium, most of the people are not selling at this point of time, but the liquidity will come. Since there is a short term supply deficit globally, I think going forward in the next couple of weeks, I think this supply will start again and automatically the price will come down because as we have seen that prices rally to more than $50 per ounce and short term, there might be some volatility.
We assume that supply concerns will be over in the next couple of weeks as per what we spoke with the bullion dealers.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Satish, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks.
Satish Dondapati: Thank you.
Privacy And Advertising
The latest digital personal data protection rules will impact the way digital advertisers deal with consumers and source information about them. The DPTP rules have provisions aimed at safeguarding personal data which means advertisers have to focus on transparency, user content and data minimisation.
Advertisers will need to redesign their data collection and user engagement strategies and shift towards greater transparency and control in the hands of users who in turn will have to be more aware of how their data is being used. This obviously gets more stringent when it comes to Moreover, will social media platforms who depend on data and particularly behavioural data shift to less invasive models and what will that do to their revenue streams? India's advertising market grew about six to seven percent in the last five years and crossed the one lakh crore mark last fiscal that's the hundred thousand crore rupee mark and digital advertising has emerged as the fastest growing segment within that accounting for about 45 percent of that ad spend up from about 24 percent just five years ago according to CRISIL. So how could it go from here and what are the factors at play? I reached out to Nikhil Verma, technical lead for Algorand Foundation, our partner in blockchain and I began by asking him how he saw this panning out from his vantage point and look out for insights on blockchain and how it can transform businesses as we count down to the third Algorand India Summit 2025 to be held on December 6th and 7th at the ITC Gardenia in Bangalore and you will find that link in the description.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Nikhil Varma: One of the founding principles of advertising is segmentation, targeting, and positioning. That's what is taught in all business schools. You know, you have to segment the data.
And when we talk about segmentation, targeting, and positioning, you need to have lots of data. And to be able to get lots of data, you need to source that data from third-party aggregators. So this whole construct of a peer-to-peer customer relationship only happens post hoc, which means after we've done the segmentation, after we've actually turned that person or group of people as customers, and then you kind of build different kinds of strategies to market things to them.
Now, with the DPDP Act, this is going to take a big hit. That's going to be a big problem. And sometimes regulations result in a lot of innovation also.
But what I'm seeing over here is this whole construct of segmentation, targeting, and positioning can be done in the lab, but you don't have data anymore. In fact, you should not have data anymore. Otherwise, you're asking for trouble.
So how do we reach out to the customers and how do we build this relationship with the customers is going to be a big challenge for the advertising industry.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. And if we were to go by how people are doing it today versus how things will have to change, the primary change will be the seeking of consent. And people may give it, people may not give it.
And assuming in both situations where people give or don't give, how do you see that going? And then what could advertisers do? I mean, to come to the solution side of things as well.
Nikhil Varma: So, of course, customer consent is required, right? Now, so far, the consumer or the customer was basically a target of advertisement, all kinds of advertisements that were targeted to them. Now, if I'm watching a cricket match, I will have ads which are focused on cricket.
If I'm watching a cricket match in the United States, I'm getting money transfer ads, which kind of makes sense. So there are constructs of ecosystem that could be built in here where you could possibly get the people. But even then, you don't have access to these people.
So essentially, the person has to give you access. And to be able to give you access, one of the things that has not been addressed by most of these advertising folks is to be able to answer the question to the consumer, what is in it for me? And unless and until a person feels empowered, unless and until a person feels that there is some kind of a collaboration, some kind of a benefit, I'm going to be a part of a community, you are not going to get that consent.
And over here, the consent, mind you, just consent is also not an overarching consent. The consent also has to be defined for a specific purpose. The granularity of the consent being so sharp makes it a bigger challenge.
And hence, customer centricity has to be the new term for advertising. How do I make the customer central to the piece rather than trying to get to a cluster of customers and getting them onboarded to my solution and then kind of trying to increase my density of products that the customer is trying to buy from me?
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. So if you don't have enough personal data without that explicit consent, which means you're not able to serve the kind of advertisements that you want to or personalise them to the extent that you would like to. And we're obviously all talking of this in the digital world.
So what then happens? I mean, and what role do you see for technology itself in helping or aiding this or solving it?
Nikhil Varma: So having consumer data is not unless and until the customer gives you access is not possible. However, there could be mechanisms and there are mechanisms actually in the blockchain world which can help you kind of reach out to certain people without having the privacy information about these people. Let me simply put.
So what we have in the blockchain space is something which is called a verifiable credential. Now, suppose I'm a consumer who wants to buy everything that is plastic free. Now, this plastic free verifiable credential is in my wallet.
Essentially, what I have is that I have a preference towards things which do not have any plastic in it. That particular verifiable credential could be my identity, could be the hot button that a marketing company can reach out to me. Now, they cannot actually get my information unless and until I give them the right to be able to do that.
So they send me a token saying, can I reach out to you? This is just a handshake process, digital handshake process. No noise.
It's not a phone call. It's a digital token which is sent out to me. Now, Algorand actually is very interesting as compared to the other blockchains.
In Algorand, nobody can drop a token in your wallet. You have to give them consent to be able to drop a token in your wallet. So over here, suppose somebody sends me a token saying, I would like to contact you because you have this verifiable credential, which seems to be very interesting.
And then I give them the consent to kind of work with me because now I feel empowered that, hey, this is the hot button. This is my hot button, and this is what this company also feels connected with me. And hence, we will be able to do some kind of data sharing.
So unless and until I know what is in it for me as a consumer, I'm not going to be giving you the consent to be able to connect with me. That's the change in the segmentation targeting and positioning framework. Although the founding principles still stay the same, you will segment based on verifiable credentials, right?
But your positioning strategy will have a bit of a disconnect from what we used to have in the past, because we used to have three third-party aggregators who would sell data to us. And that's how we would reach out to consumers with or without their consent. But that's going to change now.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. And do you feel that consumers will be sophisticated enough to manage this process and create this sort of task, saying that, OK, I'm vegetarian, I like plastic-free, I like to watch cricket, and so on and so forth? There may be so many things that we prefer and do not prefer.
Nikhil Varma: That's true. So you're not going to be seeking out to get those verifiable credentials. These verifiable credentials are a part of your history.
What we are all going to have is a sovereign ID, a wallet, which kind of carries all these verifiable credentials over a period of time, right? Now, that sovereign ID that I carry, I would gain different kinds of verifiable credentials, of course, based on my consent also, because I feel connected to that from various parties. So essentially, this works on an economies of scale model that somebody has done one verification for me or one identification for me.
And that is something which connects me to the ecosystem in the future. So this is a slightly complex construct if we see it from the current day principles. Every company, if I go to a hotel, suppose I am a part of a myriad group right now.
And my group is not going to share my preferences with the Hyatt group. If I go to Hyatt, I'll have to go and set up my preferences again. But with the DPDP, what's going to happen is I am the centre of this whole piece.
So all my verifiable credentials, which are my liking, so I would like to stay on a high floor, I'm allergic to certain things, all these things come into my self-sovereign wallet. And then I will be able to share it with the Hyatt group because I need those preferences to be handled. So now I am motivated to collect those verifiable credentials.
That's the key here.
Govindraj Ethiraj: So in some ways you're saying that each time I sign up to a hotel loyalty programme, I don't have to re-enter all my preferences and so on. It could be actually part of something that's shared.
Nikhil Varma: That's true. That's true. See this whole construct of the ecosystem when I say this ecosystem is going to be built around me.
Earlier, these ecosystems were built by these power players, these different entities, where I would have to go and interact and tell them who I am. Over here, I am who I am, and this is how I would like to interact is the kind of communication that I would be giving to the different players. So the unit of analysis or unit of interaction would change.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Right. Last question. Any practical rollout that you're seeing in the near term in this space?
Nikhil Varma: So one of the practical rollouts, and this is very interesting, might not be in the FMCG sector, but one of the sectors that we are looking at is Mandeshi, and that is where we are trying to scale up things. If you know, we have spoken about this in the past. In Mandeshi, what we have helped the folks in Mandeshi build is a wallet which has verifiable credentials for the women who are in the unorganised work sector.
And what they have over a period of time is they have gained different kinds of verifiable credentials based on their interactions, based on whether they have taken a revolving line of credit, so on and so forth. And Mandeshi kind of parses all this together and ties it into something which is called a credit scorecard. Now, this credit scorecard that Mandeshi is publishing is something which financial institutions can use as a data point to be able to do that whole segmentation, targeting and positioning.
Right. So they can use this as a segment to be able to reach out to these women and say, hey, you are qualifying for a loan, right? And you would qualify for a loan.
Would you like to share your data with me? And that token comes into their wallet, and then they can do the digital handshake. But this is still in process of discussion.
We're still looking at different kinds of interfaces, including the unified lending interface of the government of India, where these marketplaces could possibly send these tokens to these women's wallets, and we would still be compliant to every single thing that is prescribed in DPP. Right.
Govindraj Ethiraj: Nikhil, thank you so much for joining me.
Nikhil Varma: Sure, Govind. Thank you.
