Driving the Data Economy will Improve Data Monetization

S Mohini Ratna, Editor - VARINDIA

Governments are strategically building a data/AI powered economy that will drive their future GDP growth and enhance the nations’ competitiveness. Data collected from IoT devices are one of the driving forces behind the shift to the data economy. As the number of “things” have become more instrumented, interconnected, and intelligent, data will grow exponentially. They are creating platforms, monitoring ethical use, promoting democratization, data sharing and portability while protecting sovereignty, data privacy and security.

The hard fact is data originates from many new sources and is increasingly becoming easier to collect and analyze. While we are in the era of digital transformation, the banking sector has changed the way financial institutions treat their customer data. As customer data becomes critically important in this new data-driven economy, banks need to capture and analyse this data in order to improve both their own performance and their users’ experience. 

The ultimate challenge which is seen, with the creation of a more connected and digital banking market also makes this data more vulnerable to cyber risk and fraud. With the right technology and tools, however, the same data can be used to markedly improve banks’ fraud and threat detection.

The need of the hour is, there is an urgency in evaluating the digital developments in the banks on how they capture, store and use the customer data. It will also look at the need for heightened data security in the open banking environment, as well as the central role that banks can play in managing and protecting their clients’ digital identities.

What emerges is a compelling requirement for financial organisations to connect the dots internally, to both maximise the business benefit of a heightened data, digital identity and threat detection strategy, and to merge the strengths of hitherto disjointed departments to aid this transformation. Cybersecurity and fraud departments, for example, need to be working together to create a robust and secure operation.

Going forward, the banks should use the correct and know the use of new and emerging technologies. Banks can not only ensure compliance with relevant regulations but also improve their customers’ banking experience and their own standing in a new digital and data-driven banking environment.

Secondly, the most important thing is to understand on how the Data economy is shaping a new social fabric enhancing citizens’ and consumers’ lives through new data-driven products and services. Now the biggest challenge to the digital and data economy is the telecommunications industry which provides the digital backbone that innovative companies in other industries are leveraging to create value and sitting at the core of the digital revolution. It provides the communication infrastructure and services that connect the digital world. From mobile phones to long-haul data services, billions of individuals and businesses depend on the reliable and cost-effective equipment, network, and services provided by communication service providers (CSPs).

The challenge is -the Indian telco industry is facing declining revenues, as its core business of voice and data are commoditized through WhatsApp, WeChat, Google, and others. The shift towards consolidation has continued and even accelerated. At the same time, customers across the board are demanding higher network reliability and bandwidth, forcing the carriers to spend billions on network upgrades and build-outs.

In India, the average monthly mobile data usage per smartphone has seen an extraordinary increase in recent years, becoming the highest in the world. Low prices for mobile broadband services, affordable smartphones and people’s changing video viewing habits has continued to drive monthly usage growth in the region.

Recently, Vodafone Idea chairman, Kumar Mangalam Birla spoke about the present situation of the Indian telecom industry, thus remarking that the company might have to shut operations if it does not get any relief from the government in paying the Rs 53,000 crore dues which rests on its head on account of license fees, spectrum usage charges, interests and penalties. On the other hand, Bharti Airtel also faces dues of Rs 35,500 crore. The total pressure on the telecom industry is of Rs 1.47 lakh crore, and this pressure has come after the Supreme Court changed the definition of AGR to include non-core operations as well.

Broadband is playing an increasingly important role in development and we can’t deny the fact that there are numerous influence to the mobile broadband technology that enables users to watch videos on YouTube, send emails, browse the Internet, access content from cloud-based storage accounts, and upload files while on the go. Mobile broadband technologies accounts 57 percent of mobile subscriptions at the end of the year, and the share of smartphone subscriptions is expected to have increased from 48 percent to 54 percent. 5G subscriptions are expected to become available in 2022 and will represent 11 percent of mobile subscriptions at the end of 2025.

Lastly, we should thank the efforts of the government for working on measures to improve the health of the telecom sector, including “reforms” in spectrum pricing etc. This is clamouring for help to ease financial stress that 5G base prices could be lower than what has been proposed.

With this I wish all the readers Merry Christmas and a Prosperous News Year 2020.