Arbitrage Magazine - March 2019 - Finance & Investment Club | IIM Rohtak

Venezuela's Perennial Problems : By Garima Mundra ( IIM Ahmedabad) The Background Venezuela is a small country at the northern-most tip of Latin America, with neighbours such as Columbia, Guyana and Brazil. Its population is 32 million (which is equal to the population of Delhi and Bengaluru combined). It was 1922 when the first oil well was found in Venezuela post which, things have never been the same for this nation. Within ten years of finding oil Venezuela became its largest exporter in the world. Till this date, being one of the most oil rich countries in the world, Venezuela relies very heavily on oil for its income. Nearly, 95% of its hard currency is earned through exporting oil.

It enjoyed its oil dominance for good three decades till 1960’s when there was a huge dip in the oil prices. Subsequently, the OPEC was formed and this cartel pledged to regulate oil prices by controlling its supply across the globe. In 1970’s the Arab OPEC countries got caught up in Arab Israeli war and cut supplies to US and other nations. As a result, this distant South American nation reaped benefits of this situation because of a surge in oil prices and increased demand from its neighbours. During 1980’s Venezuela’s incomes quadrupled before oil hitting another glut due to over-production.

This was an economic slowdown period globally due to which oil prices suffered and so did growth; until the turn of the millennium when oil prices started to rise again and the world witnessed an era of dot com.

Venezuela stood the test of time, till early 2000s, but loosely till 2013 when it’s President Hugo Chavez died.

Venezuela by now had invested heavily into abundant social welfare schemes as a part of its late President’s populist agenda to remain in power.

The Problem Owing to a series of bad economic decisions and strong dependence on a single sector, oil, which due to global market forces was very unpredictable, Venezuela could never see a long term economic stability. At the stem of this misery were perennial political, social as well as economic reasons but the overwhelming factor was the volatile prices of oil.

Venezuela was running into a huge Current Account Deficit (CAD) due to overspending in its welfare schemes, it also didn’t diversify its income generating sectors due to which agriculture and manufacturing took a major hit. The nation has seen continuous recessions and has faced steady and heavy inflation. The current estimated inflation rate in this struggling nation is more than 13,000% and it’s said that prices of commodities over here are doubling every 26 days!

This phenomena is generally known as Hyperinflation.

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The Indicators a) Gross Domestic Product: President Hugo Chavez was ruling Venezuela in 2008. His policies were indeed effective as the brought in growth and reduced economic disparity increased the CAD.

10 year GDP (in Billion US$) 600

2008 GDP: 500 Billion USD 2018 GDP: 320 Billion USD.

500 400

This fall in GDP is closely due to declining oil prices and meagre contribution of other sectors in the economy.

300 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

The graph shows a considerable 5% Year on year real GDP growth rate in 2008. But the economic crisis which originated from the US, shook the entire world. Venezuelan economy regained momentum as the markets started to recover owing to demand from countries like India and China.

10 year GDP growth % 10 5 0 -5

whereas,

08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

-10

2008 growth: 5% 2018 growth: -15%

-15 -20

b) Inflation: While the average inflation rate in India is 3-4% YoY, the inflation rate in Venezuela in 2008 was 31.40% and this won’t seem bad at all when we get to know that the current inflation rates in this country are above 13,000%. The reason being disastrous economic policies by current president Nicolas Maduro.

10 year Inflation rate (%) 1000 500 0 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

When the government ran out of money to repay its debts, it started printing money. This excessive printing led to the Venezuelan Bolivar losing its value in the markets due to excess supply and thus, finally resulting in the hyperinflation.

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The Situation 2018 is over and the troubles of Venezuela show no signs of ending. Its currency Bolivar grows weaker each day, its people stay hungry and live in dire poverty. Violent crimes and homicides don’t seem to abate. Its people are millionaires (currency’s value loss due to hyperinflation) but are devoid of basic commodities and healthcare. Turn towards its capital, and you’ll find people adopting the barter system to trade, meat in exchange of milk. There is a mass exodus from the country, and it is estimated that over 2 million people have fled the country in search of better living.

The Solution Burdened with enormous debt, low incomes and falling institutions, the Venezuelan president is all set to propose his new reforms. There are mainly 2 course of actions he intends to take: a) Introduction of a new currency: Prices are so high that denominations run into millions for essential commodities. There is a proposal to slash five 0’s from the current Bolivar and make it into a new Sovereign Bolivar. If this is done, an item costing 100,000 Bolivar would become worth just 1 Sovereign Bolivar. b) Tax and wage reforms: To hike the minimum wages by more than 3000% and levy high corporate taxes and increase the highly subsidised oil prices in an attempt to negate unemployment and poverty.

The Opinion a) A Sovereign Bolivar seems redundant because removing zeros from the old would only make it easier to carry the currency not improve its intrinsic value. The Bolivar needs to find its own true value in the market. Because restructuring of the currency will not curb the inflation which has occurred due to over-printing of money thus, flooding the supply of it.

The most vital step thus, to eradicate hyperinflation is to encourage manufacturing other goods and promote SMEs that would generate employment which shall provide people with more disposable income. Employment generation would lead to increase in demand of goods which will in-turn encourage production, thus completing a whole cycle. Focus needs to be shifted from just oil production to agriculture and secondary sectors rapidly. There should be tightening of the monetary policy as well, the need of the hour is to bring back the excessive floating money into the banks again and regulate it. b) Tax and wage reforms will benefit no one if the dismantled institutions are not re-built.

Again, increasing the minimum wages by 3000% will effectively be similar to removing the zeroes in the currency. No tangible effect shall be reflected unless other sectors pick up. The government currently is not able to afford the imports, which can be dealt with by becoming self-sufficient in producing at least essential commodities like crops, meat and milk. c) Last suggestion would be to adopt the US Dollar as the official currency and flush out the decaying Bolivar in its entirety. This process is called as official currency substitution and is seen in economies after a major economic crisis. Its neighbours like El-Salvador and Ecuador have already done the same. The main benefit of doing this is to reduce the transactional costs of trade as there is a difference of exchange rates while buying and selling dollars which in net terms results in losses to the party asking for a conversion. Venezuela after official currency 5

substitution will increase confidence among international investors, thus, attracting foreign direct investments (FDIs) and foreign institutional investments (FIIs) because after all this nation has one of the world’s largest oil reserves. This would eventually lead to a reduction of risk premiums, thereby reducing interest rates. Reduced interest rates always promote external investments. Venezuela by doing so, would make it easier for its economy to integrate with the world economy and come out of its crisis.

The only downside is that by doing so, Venezuelan government would lose its power and authority to print and regulate its own money. A sacrifice that the current socio-imperialist president would not be willing to make very easily.

Sources • • • •

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjMziwZ1VzM https://www.reuters.com/article/us-venezuela-economy-forex-idUSKBN1AP2LM https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=24432 https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2017/04/06/how-chavez-andmaduro-have-impoverished-venezuela

All graphs self-made. Data for graphs taken from: • •

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Venezuela https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_in_Venezuela

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Union Budget 2019-20: An In-Depth Analysis : By Rujuta Wani (SIMSREE Mumbai)

Finance Minister Mr. Piyush Goyal presented the Interim Budget FY 2019-20 on February 1, 2019. It was the last budget of the BJP Government before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. This year, the Interim Budget is also a ‘Vote on Account’ as it is close to the end of its term. In the comprehensive Budget speech, Mr. Piyush addressed the nation towards building a ‘New India’ by 2022 which is healthy and clean, where farmer’s income would have been doubled; where everybody would have a house with access to water, electricity and toilets; where Indian youth and women would get ample opportunities to fulfil their dreams; where India would be free from terrorism, communalism, corruption, casteism and nepotism.

The Government’s vision is to make India a manufacturing hub of the world finds its imprints in the budget proposals by encouraging the spirit of entrepreneurship among all the Indians by providing credit facilities and training programs to shape the skills of young entrepreneurs.

This budget lays the roadmap of transforming Indian economy by ushering the era of digitalization, privatization the fruits which will be reaped in the coming years. The main aim of this year’s budget lies in restricting the fiscal deficit of 2018-19 to a level of 3.4% of the GDP with an assurance that the next year deficit to be retained at 3.4% despite disbursements of Rs. 75,000 crore on direct benefit transfers to the marginal farmers. A roadmap has thus been chalked out for enhancing investments in key sectors and passing on the benefits of growth process to the common man.

Highlights of the Budget

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Income Tax relief: No tax to be paid by those whose taxable income is less than Rs 5 lakh. Standard deduction for salaried class increased to Rs 50,000 from earlier Rs 40,000.

Tax exemptions: People with gross income upto Rs 6.5 lakh need not pay any tax if they make investments in PF (Provident funds) and prescribed equities. TDS threshold for home rent has been increased from Rs 1.8 lakh to 2.4 lakh. Interest income up to Rs 40,000 in post offices and banks has been made tax free. Capital gains tax exemptions (Section 54) to be available upto Rs 2 crore.

These are available on 2 house properties only. Income Tax returns to be processed within 24 hours and refunds will be paid without delay. Within two years, entire process of IT returns to be done electronically without any intervention by officials.

For farmers: Assured income support of Rs 6,000 per year for small and marginal farmers. Also farmers having land upto 2 hectares will get Rs 6,000 per year in three equal installments. The total outlay of this is estimated to be Rs. 75000 crore per annum. The scheme is planned to be effective from December 1, 2018. Farmers affected by natural calamities will get 2% interest subvention and additional 3% interest subvention upon timely repayment. Kisan credit card scheme is extended to cover for those who are in animal husbandry and in fisheries.

GST: Direct tax collections has increased from Rs 6.38 lakh crore in 2013-14 to almost Rs 12 lakh crore in 2018 also the tax base is up from Rs 3.79 crore to 6.85 crore. Businesses with less than Rs 5 crore annual turnovers, which includes approximately 90% of GST payers, will be allowed to file quarterly returns. Indian Customs to fully get exposed to a digitized transactions platform and leverage RFID for logistics. Duties on 36 capital goods have been abolished by government. GST collections as of January 2019 has crossed Rs 1 lakh crore Sops for workers: First time government has introduced Rs 3,000 per year pension for unorganized sector workers. A scheme of New Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maandhan Yojana for unorganized sector workers with income up to Rs 15,000 per month will be launched. Workers will get Rs 3,000 per month pension with a contribution of Rs 100 per month after retirement. Government has allocated Rs 500 crore for the scheme. Also gratuity limit for workers increased to Rs 30 lakh.

Defence Budget: Government had increased defence budget to over Rs 3 lakh crore owing to the recent attacks.

Government will provide additional funds for defence, in case needed. It had disbursed 35,000 crore rupees under One Rank One Pension (OROP) scheme.

Railways: Railway's operating ratio is 96.2% in year 2018-19. Railway capex for FY19-20 is set at record Rs 1.6 lakh crore.

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Fiscal Deficit: Presently the Government has revised the fiscal deficit target to 3.4%. Fiscal deficit for year 2019-20 is estimated at 3.4 percent of GDP. Government's earlier stated commitment earlier was to bring down the fiscal deficit to 3.1 percent of GDP by the end of March 2020, and to 3 percent by March 2021.Current account deficit is at 2.5% of the GDP. Besides this, a single window clearance will be made available to filmmakers, anti cam cording provision also to be introduced in Cinematography Act to fight piracy. Government has identified 10 priority sectors: (1) To build a Digital India reaching every citizen (2) Swatch and Green India (3) Expanding rural industrialization through modern technologies (4) Clean Rivers - with safe drinking water (5) Oceans and coastlines development (6) To build next generation infra, both physical and social (7) Becoming new launch pad of the world (8) Self-sufficiency in food and improving agricultural productivity emphasizing on organic food (9) Healthy and wealthy India; (10) Minimum Government Maximum Governance Social schemes: Government plans to build 1 lakh digital villages. For farmer’s welfare a decision to increase MSP by 1.5 times the production cost for all 22 crops was taken. Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, a programme to give 8 crore free LPG connections to rural households of which 6 crore connections have been given already. Committee under NITI Aayog was set up for de notified nomadic & semi nomadic communities.

Entering the league of Developed Nations: India is expected to become a $5 trillion economy by 2023 and a $10-trillion economy in the next eight years. Growth in the last 5 years has been higher than that by any other government.

The government has spent approximately Rs 2.6 lakh crore in recapitalization of PSU Banks.

The current inflation figure stands at 4 percent as per Flexible inflation targeting policy. There has been transparent auctioning of natural resources like coal and oil. The domestic air traffic doubled in the last 5 years. Over 90% of the country is now covered under sanitation coverage.

More than 5.45 lakh villages have been declared Open Defecation Free villages. Ayushman Bharat, was the world's largest healthcare programme launched to provide medical care to almost 50 crore people has resulted in saving of Rs 3,000 crore by poor families. Loans worth Rs 7.23 lakh crore have been given under Mudra Yojana scheme. The budget has been structured to meet the aspirations of most sections of society. Marginal farmers, unorganized 9

sector, middle class; workers have been given benefits which were long overdue. The outlook for the next 3 years is extremely favourable in view of increase in private consumption as a result of increasing rural incomes. The ambitious public infrastructure investments will lead to economic growth. More credit flowing will happen due to restructuring of banking sector.

There is no doubt that India’s time has come to join the league of the most advanced economies of the world.

References: • •

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/budget-2019-highlightsand-expert-views/videoshow/67808505.cms https://www.thehindu.com/business/budget/interim-budget-2019-here-are-thehighlights/article26147972.ece

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A Comparative Study of Growth Expectations in Emerging Markets and Developed Markets : By Subramanya .V. Acharya and Sapthami A

Introduction According to efficient market hypothesis proposed by Fama (1965) the stock prices discounts all the available information and stock prices will always reflects the fair value. Growth expectations is one of such information considered as primary drivers of the stock price (La Porta, 1996). The growth expectations are based on the firm specific factors and the macro economic factors. However, in early 1980s many researchers such as Daniel Kahneman, Amos Traversky, Richard Thaler, Robert Shiller and so on argued that the markets are not efficient because of the irrationality exhibited to the investors (Kahneman & Tversky, 1979; Massey & Thaler, 2013; Shiller, 2003). These researchers came up with the perspective how the human behaviour influences the investing decisions of the investors. Daniel Kahneman, in his 2011 bestseller Thinking Fast and Slow, called this WYSIATI (what you see is all there is) a more formal term is “bounded rationality” says that investors make decisions based on available information which is incomplete. Robert J Shriller wrote a book called “Irrational Exuberance”.

There is a tendency that market will become irrational at times, this may reflect as bubble in the stock market, which is called irrational exuberance. The irrational expectations will create a bubble which will prevail for some time and it will burst. This happens when growth expectation is unrealistic. When the investors are very much confident about the stock price of an asset, it will keeps on increasing and investors ignore the value of its underlying (Amadeo, 2018). They ignore to validate the fundamentals are supporting the rise in the stock prices.

Stories develop to justify the bubble and investors think that they are true as everyone confirming the stories, gradually price reaches too high and the bubble burst (Rotblut, 2015).

Many market observers feel that the growth expectations in the developed markets are higher compared to that of emerging markets (Hu, 2018; Wijmen, 2016). Therefore, in this paper we quantify the market growth expectations of the emerging markets and compare that with the expectations of developed markets. a) Sample and Methodology The growth expectations of sample firms from 10 countries i.e. 5 countries considered as emerging markets and 5 countries considered as the developed markets are studied. The firms constituted in the benchmark index of these countries are considered in this study. The table below presents the sample descriptions: Classification

Country

Table 1: Sample Size Index

Emerging Countries

Brazil Russia India China

IBX 50 Index Russian RTS Index Nifty 50 Index SSE 50 Index 11

No. of Firms 50 42 50 50

Sample Firms 45 38 47 49

Developed Countries

South FISE/JSE Africa Top40 IX Index Africa United Dow Jones Industrial Average States Germany Deutsche Boerse AG German Stock Index DAX Japan TOPIX Core 30 Index Canada S&P/TSX 60 Index Belgium BEL 20 Index Total

40

38

30

30

30

29

30 60 20 402

23 58 13 370

The implied growth rate is taken as a proxy for market’s growth expectation about a firm. The estimation procedure involves three steps: 1. The intrinsic value or theoretical rate of the sample firms is estimated using dividend discount model (DDM). To find out the intrinsic value of the firm, the first step is to find out the potential earning streams of the company for the current year, following year and subsequent year. An estimated growth rate for earnings of the company has to be determined. From the projected earning streams, a dividend payment schedule is derived and discounted to the present value. The model uses the risk-free rate of 10 year Treasury bond plus a risk premium, which is also called market's required rate of return as the discount rate.

2. Compare the theoretical price calculated in step 1 with the market price. If the two prices are significantly different it means one of the two things. First, if the market price is higher than that of theoretical price, it means the growth expectations of the market are higher than that of the one used in the DDM model. Second, if the theoretical price is more than the market price, it suggests the market growth expectations are lower than that of the one used on the model.

3. Finally, we estimate the implied growth rate, a rate at which the growth rate that equates the current price of equity with the theoretical price.

The estimations are done using the DDM calculator in the Bloomberg during 28th to 30th December 2018. The screen shot of Bloomberg DDM calculator is presented below: Figure 1: Dividend Discount Model Calculator

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To test the differences in the growth expectations previa lining in emerging and developed markets we run ANOVA which statistically tests whether the population mean of several groups are equal. b) Analysis and Interpretations The descriptive statistics are presented in Table 2.

Table 2 Descriptive Statistics Markets

Emerging Markets

Country

N

Mean

Brazil Russia India China South Africa

45 38 47 49

20.04% 12.74% 13.79% 14.57%

8.09% 6.36% 6.23% 9.00%

1.00% 3.00% 2.00% 1.00%

40.00% 37.00% 25.00% 36.00%

38 217 30 29 23 58 13 153

11.05% 14.44% 11.87% 10.07% 7.26% 12.16% 7.85% 9.84%

6.31% 7.20% 3.44% 7.49% 5.42% 7.51% 4.54% 5.68%

3.00% 2.00% 5.00% 0.00% 1.00% 1.00% 1.00% 1.60%

37.00% 35.00% 20.00% 34.00% 21.00% 44.00% 16.00% 27.00%

Total US Germany Developed Japan Markets Canada Belgium Total

Std. Dev.

Minimum Maximum

The average implied growth rate of emerging markets was about 5 percent higher than that of the developed markets. Naturally, the growth of the firms in the emerging markets will be higher compared to that of developed markets. But, to call this rational, the fundamentals of the companies should support the expectations. To analyse the growth expectation, we use some important fundamental factors such as the last 15 years stock CAGR, revenue growth and dividend yield.

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Table 3: Fundamentals of Emerging and Developed Markets Historical Markets Implied Return Revenue Dividend Country Growth Rate (15 yr. CAGR) Growth Yield Brazil 20.04% 11.76% 5.46% -2.87% Russia 12.74% 4.31% 7.31% 3.52% India 13.79% 12.41% 10.69% -0.62% Emerging 14.57% 3.46% 7.79% 5.64% Markets China South Africa Average Belgium Japan Germany Developed Markets Canada

11.05% 14.44% 7.85% 7.26% 10.07% 12.16%

11.21% 8.63% 2.49% -0.27% 6.75% 4.27%

7.67% 7.78% -0.23% -0.26% 4.61% 3.87%

1.06% 1.35% 0.85% 7.82% 3.47% 4.44%

US Average

11.87% 9.84%

5.50% 3.75%

2.60% 2.12%

1.28% 3.57%

For countries such India and South Africa, expected growth rate is supported with the CAGR and revenue growth. But, we can observe that the implied growth rate is almost 3 times the historical return in developed markets and about 1.6 times in the emerging markets. This proves that the market expectations are not rational. The higher level of irrationality is prevailing in developed markets. The results of ANOVA are presented in Table 4.

Table 4: Emerging Markets – One-way ANOVA results Sum of Squares Between Groups Within Groups Total

df

Mean Square

0.396

9

0.044

1.754 2.150

360 369

0.005

F

Sig.

9.033 0.001

The ANOVA test results indicate there is statistically significant difference in the growth expectations between the countries. The table below provides the post-hoc multiple comparisons between the countries.

Note: Post-hoc multiple comparisons based on Tukey HSD. Dependent variable is implied growth rate. MD is mean difference.

The post-hoc test reveals that the growth expectations of Brazilian firms are higher compared to all the other countries and it is statistically significant. While the growth expectations of Indian markets are higher than the Japanese and lower than the Brazilian markets.

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Country Brazil

Russia

India

Table 8: Post-hoc Multiple Comparisons Country MD Sig. Country Country Russia 0.073 0.000 United Brazil States India 0.063 0.001 Russia China 0.055 0.007 India South 0.090 0.000 China Africa US 0.082 0.000 South Africa Germany 0.100 0.000 Germany Japan 0.128 0.000 Japan Canada 0.079 0.000 Canada Belgium 0.122 0.000 Belgium Brazil -0.073 0.000 China Brazil India -0.011 1.000 Russia China -0.018 0.970 India South 0.017 0.989 South Africa Africa US 0.009 1.000 US Germany 0.027 0.871 Germany Japan 0.055 0.091 Japan Canada 0.006 1.000 Canada Belgium 0.049 0.472 Belgium Brazil -0.063 0.001 South Brazil Africa Russia 0.011 1.000 Russia China -0.008 1.000 India South 0.027 0.738 China Africa US 0.019 0.975 US Germany 0.037 0.421 Germany Japan 0.065 0.010 Japan Canada 0.016 0.973 Canada Belgium 0.059 0.171 Belgium

MD -0.082 -0.009 -0.019 -0.027

Sig. 0.000 1.000 0.975 0.811

0.008

1.000

0.018 0.046 -0.003 0.040 -0.055 0.018 0.008 0.035

0.993 0.341 1.000 0.775 0.007 0.970 1.000 0.371

0.027 0.045 0.073 0.024 0.067 -0.090 -0.017 -0.027 -0.035

0.811 0.157 0.002 0.745 0.066 0.000 0.989 0.738 0.371

-0.008 0.010 0.038 -0.011 0.032

1.000 1.000 0.560 0.999 0.917

Note: Post-hoc multiple comparisons based on Tukey HSD. Dependent variable is implied growth rate. MD is mean difference.

c) Conclusion The growth expectations in both emerging and developed markets are irrational as they are not supported by the fundamentals. The growth expectations in the developed markets are lower compared to that of the emerging markets. Compared to the developed markets, the growth expectations of the emerging markets are supported by the fundamentals. Therefore, we predict that there will be downward trend in the prices of the developed markets compared to that of emerging markets.

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References: Amadeo, K. (2018). Irrational Exuberance, Its Quotes, Dangers, and Examples - The Hidden Danger of Irrational Exuberance. Retrieved January 20, 2019, from https://www.thebalance.com/irrational-exuberance-quotes-dangers-and-examples-3305937 Fama, E. F. (1965). Random Walks in Stock Market Prices. Financial Analysts Journal, 21(5), 55–59.

Hu, K. (2018). Shiller: The market is experiencing “irrational exuberance.” Retrieved January 20, 2019, from https://in.finance.yahoo.com/news/shiller-market-experiencing-irrationalexuberance-192951074.html Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk.

Econometrica (Pre-1986), 47(2), 263.

La Porta, R. (1996). Expectations and the Cross-Section of Stock Returns. The Journal of Finance, 51(5), 1715–1742. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-6261.1996.tb05223.x Massey, C., & Thaler, R. H. (2013). The Loser’s Curse: Overconfidence and Market Efficiency in the National Football League Draft. Management Science. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.697121 Rotblut, C. (2015). Robert Shiller: Beware The New Normal Bubble. Retrieved January 20, 2018, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/investor/2015/06/29/robert-shiller-beware-the-new-normalbubble/#7064aa6aa53f Shiller, R. J. (2003). From Efficient Markets Theory to Behavioural Finance. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 17(1), 83–104.

Wijmen, G. van. (2016). Irrationality in Emerging and Developed Markets. Erasmus University Rotterdam.

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Is the budget 2019 a populous budget or an economist budget? : By Radhika Malani (WIMDR, Mumbai )

Under the current Government, India has been doing great in terms of maintaining a great growth-inflation combination and in reducing the “Ease of doing business” index. There have been major structural changes to fight corruption and curb black money supply in the Indian economy with implementation of demonization and GST. Budgets play a very important role in all of the above, as it deals with planning and controlling the revenues and expenses of the nation. It also lays down a path for the glorious future of the nation.

India has seen some iconic budgets starting from the Defence Budget by Independent India's first Finance Minister RK Chetty in 1947, Epochal Budget presented by then FM Manmohan Singh in 1991, Dream Budget presented by Mr P Chidambaram in 1997 to the Interim Budget presented by Mr Piyush Goyal on 1st Feb, 2019. Whether the interim budget presented this time is truly iconic or not, time will only answer the question.

In India, Interim Budgets exist for the last few months of the ruling Government and the full budget is expected to be announced once the new Government comes into rule. It is expected that no new schemes and policy changes should be announced in the Interim Budgets, but these days Finance Ministers try and give a picture of the future (without actually backing up the expenditures). In past few decades, the Finance Ministers of India have tried to utilize Interim Budgets for highlighting the ruling party’s accomplishments and as the last attempt to make a fervent appeal to the voters. The Interim Budget generally aims at retaining the voters’ faith in the ruling government. With the general elections around the corner, it would be very naive to expect the Interim budget to be something other than a Populous Budget.

As we all know, Indian economy is a 3 tier economy comprising of agriculture, Manufacturing and service sector. People working in these sectors majorly belong to the middle class. The Interim budget of 2019 has very accurately focused on the middle class and the common man.

This will definitely help the ruling party in some extent to attain their original agenda of pleasing the voters.

So what is Interim Budget 2019 all about? It is focuses on five key areas which are really important for the “Aam Nagrik” of India.

•

•

The basic income tax limit has been raised from Rs 2.5 lakh to Rs 5 lakh. This is the biggest sign that the government is trying to gain & retain votes by making the middle class in India happy. This budget is trying to make income tax assessments friendly for India.

With the rising global political tensions, this budget has allotted the highest ever share for defence of about Rs 3 Lakh Cr. It is the need of the hour to have this in our budget.

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•

• •

Since last few years, the governments have been planning to do something substantial for the farmers; this time finally they have taken a small step. Direct income support has been planned for marginal farmers of Rs 6000 per annum. But it is not as rewarding as it looks. This is only for the farmers who own the land, what about the farmers who don’t have their own farms?

Pension for labourers of unorganized sector declared at Rs 3000 a month. This will definitely prove a good deal for the most neglected class of the Indian Economy.

Last but not the least, fiscal deficit target for FY19 which is not met, and is revised from 3.3% to 3.4% of GDP. The Government has agreed that they could not maintain the stated figure and have revised it by 1%.

Time will only solve the mystery whether the new Government will work on lines of the glorified Interim Budget. But, according to me, the current Finance Minister has put down his cards and the decision rests with the citizens of India about their future. Let’s hope for a promising future with the new Government!!!

References : 1) Budget 2019: Remembering India's most iconic Budgets: Money Control 2) Press Release from FICCI: Interim Budget 2019-20 is a Progressive Budget 3) Budget 2019 India: What is interim Budget? How is it different from General Budget and vote-on-account? – Financial Express

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Blockchain in Indian Banking System : By Avinash Singh (IMT Ghaziabad) How the tech behind cryptocurrencies is changing the Indian Banking Landscape ?

The Indian Banking System if often criticized for its lack of creativity and acceptance of technology. The incumbents in the banking sector have relied heavily on legacy systems and the old paper trail methods. But the advent of cloud, IoT and AI in the 2010’s changed this scenario. Banks realized that to improve their operational efficiencies and connect to a broader audience they need to be aligned with the latest technologies. Hence e-banking, mobile apps and chatbots started to appear everywhere. Recently banks have started the adoption of a new technology – The Blockchain.

Originally Blockchain was the underlying distributed ledger technology on which bitcoin was programmed. Financial institutions soon realized the potential Blockchain carried. Deutsche bank was the first financial institution to create a proof-of-concept for transfer of bonds in 2014.

Since then banks have been trying to understand and adopt this technology at a rapid pace. The Indian banking sector has arrived on the scene as well.

Blockchain: The characteristics that make it desirable 1) Immutable Ledger A key characteristic for a blockchain ledger is that it cannot be altered very easily.

Transaction data once entered cannot be changed by outside forces without the authorities knowing about it. Since transactions are stored with consensus, any change can be made only after the collusion of the entire network.

2) Decentralization Blockchain removes the disadvantages of a centralized system by utilizing consensus protocols like Proof-of Work and Proof-of -stake. Such protocols remove the concept of a single point of authority thus making systems more secure and fairer. Any direct attack on the system has null effects since the whole blockchain is distributed on separate nodes with a network.

3) Transparency The consensus mechanism makes the blockchain more transparent to its users.

4) Traceability The transaction data once entered will stay indefinitely on the ledger making fraud detection and authenticity of assets easier.

What are Indian Banks trying to achieve through Blockchain?

India’s major banks like SBI, ICICI bank, Axis banks and others have been actively working on Blockchain deployment in their operations. Even India’s Central Bank the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) has tested POC using Blockchain for trade finance.

Let’s take a look at some of the processes that Banks are trying to make more efficient using the Blockchain.

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1) Settlement of Payments Banks transactions commonly take anywhere between a few days to sometimes weeks for payment settlements. This process is highly inefficient since banks operate for a limited number of days per week and at times the institutions among which transaction takes place can be in different zones or places (international settlements). The current software designs have limited the ability to reduce time constraints.

Blockchain applications have been found to effective in reducing the long lead times irrespective of the place or time zones. It is estimated that by the consulting arm of Accenture that investment banks can save to the tune of $10 billion by using blockchain.

2) Immutable KYC data The blockchain ledgers ability to store data without the threat of being altered by outside forces makes it a more secure option than the existing systems.

KYC data once entered and protected through cryptographic encoding will be secure and unalterable making frauds less likely. An add-on benefit of this would be ease of information tracking, since all transactions on a blockchain are transparent once entered.

3) Shifting Payment Systems to Blockchain Banks are also exploring possible benefits of transferring their payment systems to the blockchain. Some banks are in different stages of launching their own cryptocurrencies.

4) Improved Invoicing & Remittance Solutions YES bank is actively working on a blockchain project that would reduce its current time of 4 days to generate a customer invoice to less than half.

Similarly, Axis Bank is using the Ripple cryptocurrency for its remittances to customers in Middle East and Singapore.

Both Banks believe that blockchain would help in saving time and subsequently lower running costs.

There are a lot more areas being addressed by banks in the broader spectrum of Trade Finance in India. Now we will look at a successful collaboration between an Indian IT Giant and several Indian Banks for a genuine success story of Blockchain.

India Trade Connect: An Indian Banking Blockchain Success Story In March 2017 Indian IT Giant Infosys with its Finacle division partnered with seven largest Indian banks viz – ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, IndusInd Bank, RBL Bank, Yes Bank, Kotak Bank and South Indian Bank. The result was the formation of the India Trade Connect.

The aim of the consortium was to examine the potential of blockchain to remove operational inefficiencies in the banking sector and mitigate the associated risk factors.

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Figure 1 Transaction Size for the consortium

Indian Trade Connects objective was to digitize the Trade Finance workflows in a network which was distributed, decentralized, shared and therefore immutable. Such workflows were to include payment systems, validation of ownership and certification of documents. The consortium designed several test cases that covered a wide variety of transaction types typical in any bank – advance payments, purchase order, invoicing, documentary credit request among others.

One successful test case was the application of workflow systems to the letter of credit issued by banks. The consortium was able to test the whole cycle of an LC on a blockchain and verify the results.

Achievements for the Consortium 1) Increase in Operational Efficiencies The consortium was able to reduce the LC cycle time from 9 days to 2-3 days which is a significant time reduction.It also displayed capabilities for transferring paperbased processes like Invoice Financing to a swift, digital process.

2) Risk Mitigation The immutability of a blockchain ledger coupled with improved transparency helped to reduce frauds associated with duplicate financing. India Trade Connect also designed dashboards for its stakeholders which enabled them to have real-time tracking of various financial trade instruments and exchanges happening over the different stages.

3) Cost Reduction Removal of document courier fees, and reduction in transaction cost due to digitization of information and process was a major achievement. This was also a testament of the blockchain platforms ability to reduce the inefficiencies plaguing the banking sector.

4) New Business Opportunities Banks will gain easy access to documents for credit purposes and this the consortium believes will lead to new sources of income. This area is of particular interest to banks who will be exploring this avenue in the coming days.

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Figure 2 Letter of Credit system on Blockchain Workflow

Apart from this the Indian Trade Connect was the winner of the 2018 Celent Model Bank Award for trade finance & supply chain.

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India Trade Connect Shareholders

Conclusion When Satoshi Nakamoto released the first bitcoin white paper in 2008, the finance industry was shaken. The bitcoin polarized people. Some were in favor some not. But what garnered more attention was the technology on which it was based i.e. Blockchain.

Blockchain is already proving its mark in different sectors – the finance and banking sector is no exception. With more and more banks coming on board with the idea of building a blockchain based system it is suffice to say that for the next decade the finance and banking sector is sure to witness a Blockchain Revolution that will transform the landscape completely and change the face of banking.

References • • • • • • • • • •

https://www.livemint.com/Money/aeuKOy0BpNrlFgXyjzTIqJ/How-blockchainputstradefinance-deals-in-fast-lane.html https://www.edgeverve.com/finacle/casestudy/india-trade-connect/ https://www.crypto-news.in/news/bankchain-introduce-blockchain-based-exchangenon-performing-assets-soon/ https://www.livemint.com/Industry/plB1lU0booCDVWyIkd8rOM/Banks-link-up-onBankChain-to-exploit-blockchain-solutions.html https://techstory.in/bankchain-indiachain-indias-tech-future/ https://lisk.io/academy/blockchain-basics/benefits-of-blockchain/what-isdecentralization https://hackernoon.com/1-what-is-decentralization-in-terms-of-blockchaintechnology-e266da2875c1 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kpmg/2018/09/11/blockchain-and-the-future-offinance/# http://images.explore.finacle.com/Web/EdgeverveSystemsLimited1/%7B07d48851d8b2-4e33-89a9-d0205c120647%7D_Seven-Bank-Consortium-Celent-Model-BankCase-Study-2018.pdf https://www.blockchain-council.org/blockchain/which-indian-bank-uses-blockchaintechnology/

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