Jio Financial Services, the Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries-backed financial services firm<\/a>, has started its lending and insurance businesses and plans to rapidly broaden its offerings as billionaire Mukesh Ambani expands the ever-so-wide tentacles of his oil-to-telecom empire.<\/p>\n The market has been closely paying attention to Reliance\u2019s financial services ambitions for years. But it wasn\u2019t until last year that Ambani, Asia\u2019s richest man, revealed that the firm plans to enter into the sector, which though has grown multiple folds in the past decade remains largely untapped, serving only tens of millions of individuals.<\/p>\n Jio Financial Services, which made public debut in August, said in its annual presentation that it has started to offer personal loan to salaried and self-employed individuals through its MyJio app and 300 stores across India. Its insurance arm has also partnered with 24 insurers to offer a wide-range of coverage across auto, health, and corporate categories, said the firm.<\/p>\n Different arms of Jio Financial Services. (Image: JFS)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Jio Financial Services has largely remained quiet about precisely what all it plans to do. The firm, whose largest backer remains Reliance Industries,\u00a0earlier this year partnered with U.S. asset manager BlackRock to launch asset management services in the country.<\/p>\n The financial services is the newest sector for Ambani, who has entered several businesses \u2014 including telecom \u2014 in the past decade and scaled them to tentpole positions. Reliance also operates the nation\u2019s largest retail chain, which has been valued at $100 billion in recent fund raises from investors including KKR.<\/p>\n As Jio Financial scales its business, it may pose a challenge to a number of players in the industry, including Paytm and Policybazaar. Reliance said it will make use of AI and analytics for its financial services business and operate on a \u201clow cost of servicing.\u201d<\/p>\n Jio Financial Services said it\u2019s taking a direct-to-customer approach with its offerings to drive cost efficiencies and enabling personalized customer interactions. The firm is incorporating \u201calternate data models for 360-degree customer view and tailored offerings,\u201d and is developing a unified app for the \u201cdiverse financial needs of customers.\u201d<\/p>\n In the annual report,\u00a0Jio Financial Services said it\u2019s also testing a sound box, the fast-omnipresent portable device that alerts merchants when a transaction has completed, the firm said, confirming an August TechCrunch report<\/a>. The company is \u201cgenerating substantial data footprint and enhancing our customer engagement across digital channels, and in turn enriching and facilitating other businesses,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n On lending, Jio Financial Services plans to extend loans to businesses and merchants as well as offer loans to facilitate vehicle and home purchases, it said. It also plans to give loans by using shares as collateral. The firm said it has also \u201crelaunched\u201d savings account service and bill payments and plans to launch debit cards.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/jio-financial-services.jpg\")
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