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 deter it from aiming for the top. Backed by the Jio brand, data support from parent companies, and learnings from peers, the non-banking financial company (NBFC) hopes to become a “constructive disruptor”.

“For us, in financial services, we hope to be what I call ‘constructively disruptive’,” managing director and chief executive officer Hitesh Sethia said at the Mint BFSI Conclave 2025 on 12 December. “One has to be price competitive because that is true value for the customer. We will have to play on the advantage of cost and scale.”

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

Sethia said pricing competitiveness will come not through a price war but via cost engineering at scale, underpinned by technology.

“We have the advantage to set everything from a zero base. If we are able to do that with today's modern technology, with the brand and capital that we have, there is a good chance we have in creating value for customers and capturing value for shareholders,” Sethia said. “That is an equation that can be solved.”

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

“Technology can certainly make a lot of products DIY (do-it-yourself). It can also digitize the distribution channel, make that intelligent and far more efficient. That is happening as we see.”

The NBFC had assets under management (AUM) worth ₹14,712 crore as of end of September, while the AUM of the AMC business was at ₹15,980 crore across nine funds. The wealth management, broking and insurance businesses are still in the incubation phase.

Brand, partnerships, and scale

Demerged from Reliance Industries and listed in 2023, Jio Financial underwent a management and business overhaul to grow its loan book across home loans, loans against property, loans against mutual funds, loans against shares, and supply chain finance.

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

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

Partnerships form a cornerstone of Jio Financial’s strategy. The company has 50:50 joint ventures (JVs) with BlackRock for asset management, wealth management, and broking. It has another 50:50 JV with Allianz Insurance for reinsurance, and has signed non-binding agreements with Allianz to enter life and general insurance.

The company is also leveraging the Jio ecosystem. “We are present in MyJio, which is a part of the Jio telecom company. The MyJio app has a few hundred million monthly active users. That gives us a funnel for Jio Finance as well. There is clearly a case for collaboration between industries,” he said, citing the example of telecom and e-commerce with financial services.

“In an eventual scale, we expect to be a full-scale service firm. We will span across the entire length and breadth of the country,” Sethia said. With Jio Payments Bank’s banking correspondent network, Jio Financial already has over 200,000 touchpoints nationwide and 18 million mobile app users.

“The game has to be expanding the market rather than trying to eat up just the existing market share,” said Sethia, who sees opportunity in taking wealth management services to people in the ‘the middle of the pyramid’ as well as offering 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 intelligent always” approach. “Simply put, financial services has to work like Wi-Fi. When you need it, it is available and when you don't, it's quiet in the background.”