Smartlands Opinion: Jumpstarting the Post-Covid-19 World

The ever-connected world seems to have come to a standstill. Although some positive signs are coming from the epicentre of the Сovid-19 crisis as the infection rates drop down, the spread of the virus elsewhere in the world and the quest to curb it is putting countries into lockdown and the economies in a free fall. 

The stimuli cushioning effect

Governments in most affected parts of the world are announcing stimulus packages in an effort to ward off an economic crisis. These packages in turn are/will be aimed at ensuring adequate medical supplies, improvement in testing & treatment and R&D for vaccines as well as for subsidies for wages, compensations for certain firms. The damages undoubtedly need to be addressed swiftly, the markets need to be pulled out of the paralysis and the quality of life of the masses brought to at least where it was before the pandemic. Let’s not forget the disparity in the aftermath of almost every crisis.

But let’s bear in mind that a very generous and prolonged fiscal stimulus may not be on cards given the already high debt-to-GDP ratios of many industrialized countries. All in all the stimuli would provide a little cushioning effect but a full-blown recovery & post-recovery will need more than just fiscal & monetary stimuli.

Wading through a crisis or leapfrogging to post-recovery

Every crisis brings an individual, company, industry, nation at the crossroads. One can choose to wade through to the pre-crisis ‘normal’ or consider innovative reforms and structural changes and create a new normal. The leaders in the post-2020 world will be the ones creating this new normal. Reviving the pre-crisis ambitions will not be enough. Now is the time to implement that ‘out of the box’ strategy and avoid the mediocrity trap. It is definitely not the time to pull the plug on the digital & innovation ambitions but to double down on them. There has never been a better time to experiment with that risky business or operating model that you could not try in the previous normal.

Most organizations are currently on a war footing to avert the worst of this crisis and maintain business continuity, but to jumpstart this process and stay ahead of the curve in the 2020s they need access to capital and the ability to move freely throughout global equity markets bringing liquidity to otherwise illiquid asset classes. Which means that right now Smartlands with its proprietary technology and extremely high rate of brand recognition is in a unique position to provide investors and issuers exactly that – fast and reliable access to the global asset pool via the issuance of digital securities.