Page 16 - coffee table book-Nov 2020 - web_Neat
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Let me explain with a few examples. Let’s say you’re a   Tell me a little more about your early warning                  10% NPA, which is $5 billion, so just by putting in place a   There’s no ownership of the fact that you put them in the
               company that’s making losses. It’s not enough to say I’m                                                                 system where you get say even 1% savings which is very   bad bank in the first place. I think it can’t be let go like that
                                                                 signal (EWS) product in particular.
               making losses, it’s important to say how long it’s going to                                                              very conservative, it gives you $500 million back and that   because it’s public money after all, and discounting is very
                                                                 Most banks say they had a gut feel earlier… there was a guy
               last, which depends on a number of external factors not in   in the credit monitoring department looking at different    too within three months of installation. So most of what   steep when it goes into a bad bank unlike regular stressed
               your control. In the Coronavirus case, for instance, it could                                                            we’ve spoken of, like quantification of losses, is instant   assets. I think there should be a strong pushback on this. It
                                                                 loans and some cases had payments frequently bouncing.
               be about whether a vaccine is found in September, versus                                                                 payback. Even customers won’t complain about it or look at   worked in some scenarios where those weren’t big
                                                                 That would mean the asset is stressed. Now you have a lot
               September of next year: it’s a whole range of theories being   more data at your disposal, you have a lot more sense     it as a spend.                                    countries like ours. Ours is a completely different scenario
               propagated and a lot of that is speculation. So as an investor                                                                                                             and I don’t think it’s apples to apples.
                                                                 coming out of data analytics, etc, which you must use. Let
               in a company, or a bank giving a loan to a company, I need                                                               And what’s your India share at this point?
                                                                 me give you an example. Now, RBI came out first with 42
               to know if this really lasted a year versus six months versus   alerts of which only 28% data came from current legacy   See we are the leaders as far as EWS is concerned. Mphasis
               six weeks, what are you going to do to stem those losses.                                                                partners with CRISIL; none of the others have their own
                                                                 systems such as loan origination systems, core banking
               The business of quantification of losses is a huge thing even                                                            product. All of the biggies partner with some of the smaller
                                                                 system etc. Where is the remaining 72% data coming from?
               for the government, forget about companies and banks. For   You could say that is coming from the “atmosphere” like the   credit providers and deliver it. But for us the product is ours
               the government it’s important to know what kind of sectors                                                               and the implementation is also ours. Completely end to
                                                                 web crawlers, credit bureau information etc. For instance,
               will make what kinds of losses, and therefore what kind of                                                               end.
                                                                 earlier you could get away with pledging the same collateral
               sops will help them come back to normal. Risk, therefore,   with multiple banks. But with the credit bureau data fed into
               becomes a competitive advantage.                                                                                         I know it’s a strange question to ask during a
                                                                 an alert, you could say this is the credit bureau data on this         pandemic, but where do you see your company in
                                                                 particular person. And that’s one more means of structured
               So what do we do, specifically? I can pick a few things. One                                                             the next couple of years, given it’s in the risk
                                                                 data. We can take clean data even from textual data. Third
               is the business of computation of losses, which is expected                                                              business?
                                                                 is, as soon as you put in the name, it goes and checks
               loss computation, or ECL. We can tell you this is the kind of                                                            In a pandemic situation, people typically will say prepare for
                                                                 whether they are in the news for the wrong reasons, what
               loss you’re looking at given various scenarios, which is very                                                            the worst and hope for the best. So we are very much in
                                                                 kind of corporate actions are there against that, are any
               accurate. It’s not going to be lockdown for ever, but even if                                                            the prepare for the worst scenario, but hope for the best.
                                                                 members of the board dumping shares, etc. In case of gut
               the situation lasts for a year you would still say these are the                                                         So it is more about getting you ready in terms of
                                                                 feel of a person, if the person moves from the headquarters
               things that’ll recover and these are the things that won’t. So                                                           quantification of losses, so you can work with the
                                                                 to a branch, it’s gone. Now people want real-time alerts.
               [it’s a] complete strategic analysis of what your losses are,                                                            government, and RBI on the respective sops. Even the
                                                                 The step-change which is coming now is wanting to see
               and most importantly a number attached to it, and that’s                                                                 ministry is going to the industries and asking what do you
                                                                 things real-time. So you can’t mess with the system.
               very important.                                                                                                          want from us to get started. You can directly tell them if this
                                                                                                                                        sop is given, we would go under the curve for a while but
                                                                 Now what they’re saying is banks can set their own
               Is this mainly for the nancial sector?                                                                                  recover six months from now. Or if you didn’t give us this,
               We are doing it primarily for them right now, because it’s   threshold. Like you can say if there are 20 alerts on a guy,   we would go down right now. Quantification helps in all
                                                                 don’t do it. Right now the threshold is left to the banks, but I
               like an extension for banks. But having said that, it can be                                                             that. We are actually preparing you for the worst with the
                                                                 don’t think it’ll be that way for long. They are gradually
               applicable to any corporate sector. Only thing you need is a                                                             hope that you’ll get there much better. And pretty much
               few parameters, such as accounts receivable-accounts   tightening things. First they said 42, then they said 82          everything—whether it is moral risk, expected
                                                                 additional alerts which are for the department of financial
               payable, data about supply chain disruptions, etc. We will                                                               computational loss, EWS... Asset-liability mismatch also we
                                                                 services (DFS). It’s going in the direction of further
               use more of macroeconomic data also… we will look at                                                                     have a product… how to manage that better, when to say
               who supplies to you and who are you supplying to in turn.   tightening.                                                  yes or no, we are preparing banks for all that.
               So we will do the analysis of your company and model this
                                                                 NPAs are expected to rise sharply after the
               to tell you this is the kind of delays and losses you could   moratorium on loans is lifted. Is that a business          How do you think banks are now looking at risk?
               have. Right now we are taking it to a bank because that’s                                                                I think banks have always been in a loss scenario, figuring out
                                                                 opportunity for you?
               our client base today. All the rest of the software that we do                                                           what to do with their NPAs etc. I was in a discussion with
                                                                 Absolutely. It’s like a doctor saying they are in business
               is with banks, so banks are proactively reaching out and                                                                 the finance minister a couple of days ago and a lot of
                                                                 because the patient is unwell. It’s not a good business to be
               saying this is how our corporate book looks like, these are                                                              different people were asking for changing the NPA
                                                                 in that sense, but that’s where we are. If NPAs go up, and
               our clients and their sectors… We can come back to say                                                                   classification. I don’t think that’s a solution to the problem.
                                                                 RBI is tightening the noose, it’s good in terms of adoption of
               you have 20% exposure to aviation, 20% to retail, another                                                                Now you have the issue with the ‘bad bank’. People want
                                                                 the business at large not just in India but globally. Secondly,
               10% in pharma, so based on how the lending pattern is, we                                                                to say it’s no longer my problem, and report numbers
                                                                 people think it’s a spend, but it’s one of those spends with
               can tell you what’ll be the losses fairly accurately. That’s not                                                         saying I am healthy. But that problem was created by you.
                                                                 the biggest payback. Most people think risk is a spend where
               subjective, but more objective based on mathematical
                                                                 it goes as a report to RBI or some authority. But in this case,
               sciences.
                                                                 just by putting a system in place there’s enormous savings
                                                                 for the bank. For instance if a bank has $50-billion asset size,
               14  rt360 Less risk, more coffee                                                                                                                                                                       rt360 Less risk, more coffee  15
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