India-based Jio Financial Services, a Reliance Industries-backed financial services company, has gone live with its lending and insurance offerings in India. Jio Financial Services, which made its public debut in August 2023, said in its annual presentation that it has started to offer personal loans 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. Jio Financial Services has largely remained quiet about precisely what all it plans to do. The company, whose largest backer remains Reliance Industries, earlier in 2023 partnered with US asset manager BlackRock to launch asset management services in India.

AI-powered solutions and direct-to-customer strategy Financial services is the newest sector in which Reliance Industries invests. Reliance also operates one of the nation’s largest retail chain, which has been valued at USD 100 billion in recent fund raises from investors, including KKR. 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 ‘low cost of servicing.’ Jio Financial Services said it’s taking a direct-to-customer approach with its offerings to drive cost-efficiencies and enabling personalised customer interactions. The company is incorporating ‘alternate data models for 360-degree customer view and tailored offerings,’ and is developing a unified app for the ‘diverse financial needs of customers.’ Explores cutting-edge technologies and diverse loan offerings In the annual report, Jio Financial Services said it’s also testing a sound box, the fast-omnipresent portable device that alerts merchants when a transaction has completed, the company said. Jio is ‘generating substantial data footprint and enhancing their customer engagement across digital channels, and in turn enriching and facilitating other businesses,’ the company said.

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. Jio said it has also ‘relaunched’ savings account services and bill payments and plans to launch debit cards.

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