Driving the Transition
5 years, 2 months, 17 days, 20 hours
4 May 2024
Sameer Aggarwal of Revfin was presenting at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) annual meeting in Tbilisi, Georgia, this week.
I drew two conclusions from what he had to say.
The energy transition will reach its peak level of acceleration when enabled by mass-market products, such as his.
My vote is with those who excoriated The Economist for its article a week ago, which cast doubt on the continued skyward trajectory of the Indian economy.
Sameer’s business provides finance for the purchase of EVs. What I particularly love about it is how the business combines the 4 things that will determine the world's future:
Decarbonisation. Accelerating the electrification of the 2nd biggest cause of CO2, i.e., passenger vehicles
Technology. Using psychometrics to judge the likelihood of whether someone will repay the loan, and telematics in the vehicles. The default rate is just 1% and 700 million miles of driving history have been gathered
Collaboration. Through partnerships with manufacturers, dealers, etc. they have addressed barriers to take-up, for example creating local spare battery stocks
Just Transition. Perhaps the most distinctive thing about this business, is that it is aimed at the poorest in the society. The typical customer has no credit history, was previously unbanked, and was educated only up to the age of ten.
From an idea born in 2017, the business has now supported more than a billion zero emission kilometres of mobility and is established across more than 1,200 locations.
In fairness to The Economist, it was a fairly balanced piece overall and as the future is by definition uncertain, no continued success is guaranteed. Some of its points were entirely well made. But for citizens of a proud nation in its ascendency, the impression of being lectured by a publication whose origins lie in the time of the British Empire, and whose Mother of Parliaments has just passed a piece of legislation that declares it can over-rule international law, was understandably a bit much to swallow.
My 30,000 feet view is that a nation with the largest population in the world, investments in infrastructure capital at eye-watering scale, rapidly expanding middle-class wealth, and the liberal business environment that allows entrepreneurs like Sameer to succeed, is inevitably on the ascendency for the foreseeable future. And one day quite soon an Indian publication may hold the same level of global respect that The Economist does today, and will be tempted to take delight in telling the UK what it is doing wrong in its sometime graceless slide from the world’s top tables.