Jio Financial Services expects to begin life, general insurance biz in 2026

The financial services company does not have any immediate plan to get into the unsecured and consumer durable lending businesses.

“We hope to start insurance manufacturing in 2026, subject to regulatory approvals,” its chief executive and managing director Hitesh Sethia told PTI recently.

The company, which recently entered the reinsurance business, along with its equal joint venture associate Allianz, will partner with the French company for general and life insurance businesses as well.

Sethia said in parallel, the company is working towards building the necessary teams for the insurance foray.

JFS, which is promoted by entities linked to the richest Indian Mukesh Ambani, has entered lending businesses, like assisting home buyers, asset management, wealth management and reinsurance, either by itself or through partnerships.Explaining its strategy in the lending business, Sethia said JFS also has its own boundaries based on risk and capital, and at present, it is concentrating on serving secured lending products to prime or near-prime customers.Given this strategy, it has a presence in about 20 cities, which offer the best of customers in the segments.

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.

When asked about plans on unsecured lending and consumer finance, Sethia hinted that there are no immediate plans and increasing the profitability will be the focus for now.

“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 said.

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.

When asked about the 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.