Jio Financial Services aims to be a constructive disruptor in India’s financial services sector

MUMBAI: Jio Financial Services is not letting its late entry into the financial services space stop it from aiming for the top. Backed by the Jio brand, parent companies’ data support and insights from the like, the non-banking finance company (NBFC) hopes to be a “constructive disruptor”.

“For us in financial services, we expect it to be what I call ‘constructively disruptive,’” said Hitesh Sethia, managing director and chief executive officer. Mint BFSI Meeting 2025 On December 12th. “It is necessary to be competitive in terms of price because this is the real value for the customer. We will have to take advantage of cost and scale.”

Jio Financial Services is the holding company of various businesses: NBFC Jio Credit Ltd, Jio Payments Bank Ltd, asset management joint venture Jio BlackRock Investment Advisers Pvt Ltd and asset management joint venture Jio BlackRock Asset Management Pvt Ltd and others.

Pricing competitiveness will not be achieved through price war but through cost engineering at scale supported by technology, Sethia said.

“We have the advantage of building everything from scratch. If we can do this with today’s modern technology, with the brand and capital we have, we have a good chance of creating value for customers and capturing value for shareholders,” Sethia said. “This is an equation that can be solved.”

He emphasized that Jio Financial’s late entry allowed it to incorporate lessons learned from decades of industry data across market timing, product segments, customer segments and distribution channels.

“Technology can certainly DIY a lot of products. It can also digitize the distribution channel, making it smarter and much more efficient. That’s what we’re seeing happening.”

NBFC’s assets under management (AUM) were worth ₹14,712 crore as of end-September, AUM of AMC business is ₹15,980 crore in nine funds. The asset management, brokerage and insurance businesses are still in the incubation stage.

Brand, partnerships and scale

Jio Financial, which was spun off from Reliance Industries and listed in 2023, has undergone a management and operating overhaul to grow its loan book across home loans, loans against property, loans against mutual funds, loans against shares and supply chain finance.

Sethia, who was appointed CEO in November 2023, sees Jio Financial as both a startup and a late entrant, but one blessed with two things that most startups take years to build: brand and capital.

“We were born with two things that take most startups many years to build,” Sethia said, adding that the goal now is to build a “stable, stable” financial institution that can “last for decades and weather the cycles that come with lending.” He said the plan is to start with secured loan products and then look at other loan products “that may be needed.”

Partnerships form the cornerstone of Jio Financial’s strategy. The company has a 50:50 joint venture (JV) with BlackRock for asset management, wealth management and brokerage. The company, which has another 50-50 joint venture with Allianz Sigorta in the field of reinsurance, signed non-binding agreements with Allianz to enter life and general insurance.

The company also leverages the Jio ecosystem. “We are on MyJio, which is part of the Jio telecom company. The MyJio app has several hundred million monthly active users. This gives us a funnel for Jio Finance as well. There is a clear case for collaboration across industries,” he said, citing the example of e-commerce along with telecom and financial services.

“We expect to eventually become a full-scale service company. We will expand all over the country,” Sethia said. Thanks to Jio Payments Bank’s banking correspondent network, Jio Financial currently has over 200,000 touchpoints and 18 million mobile app users across the country.

“Gaming should expand the market rather than just trying to eat into the existing market share,” said Sethia, who sees the opportunity to take wealth management services to people in the ‘middle of the pyramid’ as well as provide better services to people at the ‘top of the pyramid’.

Sethia emphasized simplifying financial services, meeting evolving customer expectations and moving from a “digital first to smart always” approach. “Simply put, financial services should work like Wi-Fi. It’s available when you need it, and silent in the background when you don’t.”