Ravi Menon: «There is a Quest for a New Social Compact»

The chairman of the Global Finance & Technology Network, Ravi Menon, spoke about the need for a «new social compact» that focuses on greater integration and cohesion in order for societies to be sustainable.

Division in society has risen to levels not seen in decades. Inequality has reached an unprecedented point and politics have diverged to extremes. According to Global Finance & Technology Network (GFTN) chairman Ravi Menon during a panel at the Singapore FinTech Festival (SFF) 2025, «there is a quest for a new social compact in countries» with a focus on greater integration and cohesion.

«I think we need new policy innovations to address underlying domestic disintegration of societies, both in the economic sense of reducing inequalities and creating opportunities, but also in terms of finding respectful ways for disagreeing between parties,» said Menon, who is also Singapore’s ambassador for climate action and former managing director at the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

Five Macro Themes

Menon's comments were in response to a question about how the world can remain sustainable moving forward and he highlighted five key themes as the context.

First, the economy will increasingly be AI-driven and efficient energy will be required to fuel processing power without excessive use of resources. Second, there growing tokenization of the financial system and the traditional principles that govern money will need to be sustained even if the medium is different. Third, there is a shift towards a carbon-constrained and climate-impaired world. Fourth, there is less trust and multilateral institutions are weaker, creating an impetus for a new approach to globalization.

«I think to sustain the benefits of mutual cooperation, you have to find new configurations away from the older institutions and setups,» Menon said on the fourth theme.

«It's not contrary to multilateralism. I would say that at a time when multilateralism has weakened, of course, we should try to strengthen it as best as we can but at the same time, we should invest in new forms, new coalitions, plurilateral coalitions, so that it complements a weakened multilateralism.»

Sustainable Societies

The fifth theme is about the aforementioned need for a new social compact and Menon stressed that this was the most critical theme to achieve sustainability.

«I think we need a new social compact that is going to make societies more sustainable. And if societies are not sustainable, the rest of it is not going to happen,» he reiterated.