THEBUSINESSBYTES BUREAU

MUMBAI, AUGUST 26, 2026

Jio Financial Services is moving into the next phase of its financial-services journey, using a combination of global partnerships, technology and a large distribution network to build scale across lending, investments, payments and insurance.

The company, which spent the initial years putting its financial-services infrastructure in place, is now looking to accelerate growth by working with established global institutions rather than developing every capability in-house.

Addressing shareholders at the company's Annual General Meeting for FY26 on Wednesday, CEO Hitesh Sethia said the approach was to marry Jio's technology, brand and customer access with the specialised capabilities of partners such as Bank of America, BlackRock and Allianz.

The strategy is already beginning to show up in the numbers.

Jio Credit, the group's lending arm, reported gross assets under management of more than ₹30,000 crore in the first quarter of FY27, up 163 per cent from a year earlier. Loan disbursements rose 173 per cent year-on-year to ₹11,252 crore.

The proposed investment by Bank of America is expected to provide another leg of support to the lending business. The US banking major is set to acquire up to 49.9 per cent of Jio Credit.

Beyond capital, the alliance is aimed at bringing international banking expertise, risk-management capabilities, technology and governance practices into the rapidly expanding lending operation.

For Jio Financial, the proposition is relatively straightforward: use the global partner's financial expertise while deploying Jio's digital and physical reach to acquire and serve customers.

Sethia, however, indicated that growth would not come at the expense of risk controls, with the company continuing to focus on disciplined underwriting and risk-adjusted expansion.

The same partnership-led model is taking shape in investments.

JioBlackRock, the asset-management venture with BlackRock, crossed ₹21,000 crore in AUM in July 2026. Significantly, the business is gaining customers beyond India's major financial centres.

Nearly 36 per cent of its retail AUM is generated outside the top 30 cities, while first-time mutual fund investors account for 18.5 per cent of its investor base.

That penetration is important to Jio Financial's wider ambition of taking formal financial products deeper into the mass market.

BlackRock supplies investment-management expertise, technology and processes, while Jio brings the distribution muscle and customer ecosystem.

Insurance is emerging as the third major area where the partnership strategy is being deployed.

The reinsurance joint venture between Jio Financial and Allianz started operations in March this year. The companies are also working towards a general insurance joint venture, while discussions on a possible life insurance partnership are continuing.

If these plans progress, Jio Financial could eventually have exposure across the major insurance segments, complementing its existing businesses in lending, payments and investments.

Meanwhile, its payments operations have begun to move towards profitability and operational sustainability.

Jio Payments Bank and Jio Payment Solutions both achieved an operational turnaround in the first quarter of FY27, aided by stronger transaction volumes, broader revenue sources and greater attention to unit economics.

The payments business is strategically important beyond its standalone financial performance. Frequent payment interactions can give Jio Financial a recurring channel through which it can offer customers credit, investment and insurance products.

At the centre of that proposition is JioFinance.

The platform has crossed 25 million unique users and recorded about nine million monthly active users in the June quarter. The company now wants to develop it into an AI-native financial marketplace rather than keep it as a conventional financial-services application.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are expected to help tailor offerings to individual customers, recommend suitable products and connect Jio's own services with those supplied by external partners.

The longer-term ambition is to make the customer experience seamless across financial categories, allowing a user to move from payments to credit, investments or insurance within the same ecosystem.

For Jio Financial, therefore, the individual businesses are increasingly being viewed as interconnected pieces rather than independent verticals.

Sethia said the company's expansion framework rests on four forms of capital -- financial, technology and data, human and trust capital. The company is also using its "4Rs" framework of Reputation, Regulatory Adherence, Return of Capital and Return on Capital to guide growth.

This suggests that the next phase will be less about simply adding customers and more about improving the economics of each business while maintaining regulatory and risk discipline.

The numbers provide an early indication of the scale being built: Jio Credit has crossed ₹30,000 crore in AUM, JioBlackRock has moved beyond ₹21,000 crore, the payments businesses have turned around operationally and JioFinance has crossed 25 million users.