“We hope to start insurance manufacturing in 2026, subject to regulatory approvals,” Hitesh Sethia, CEO and managing director, Jio Financial Services told PTI. Jio Financial Services recently entered the reinsurance business with its equal joint venture partner Allianz. The company plans to partner with the French company for general and life insurance businesses as well. It however does not have any immediate plans to venture into unsecured and consumer durable lending businesses.
“As our NBFC‘s business and profitability grow in line with our current risk appetite, and we learn more about our customers and the business, we will, at the appropriate time, evaluate exploring newer lending solutions at different levels of the risk spectrum,” he told PTI. Sethia pointed to a higher incidence of non-performing loans in the consumer durable and unsecured categories, and added that the same in home loans is a fraction of it.
Sethia further said that the company is working towards building the necessary teams for its insurance foray. He added that the company has its own boundaries based on risk and capital, and at present, is concentrating on serving secured lending products to prime or near-prime customers.
The company is already distributing third-party unsecured lending products, including personal loans and credit cards, through its agentic neural marketplace on the Jiofinance App. Speaking about the company’s newly expanded offerings on the app, Sethia said that it is showing very good traction, with users owing to the hyper-personalised nature of the offerings and the new conversational user interface.
Jio Financial Services shares have fallen nearly 7% in the past one month, and around 21% in the past six months. The stock has gained more than 8% in the past five years. The company has a market capitalisation of more than Rs 1.47 lakh crore.