Reliance Jio may enter mutual funds segment through 'JioMoney': Report

Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio has emerged out as one of the leading telecom companies in India. And soon after Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) took its first step in the new commerce space by launching online grocery platform JioMart, the company is now all set to foray into distributing mutual funds and other financial products this year.

Jio's digital payment app JioMoney could be used to sell mutual funds as the company has been beta-testing its offering among employees and is working on rolling out financial services constantly for the last few quarters, stated a LiveMint report.

The company has started hiring for its mutual fund segment and has also obtained an account aggregator (AA) license from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), added the report.

For the uninitiated, AA license allows an individual customer to transfer his/her financial information about the customer's various financial accounts such as bank deposits, mutual funds, pension funds, etc to any entity requiring access to such information, added the report.

The more than four-year-old JioMoney offers digital wallets. It allows users to donate, send and receive money, in addition to paying bills and recharging mobile phones and DTH connections, among other services.

Besides offering a digital wallet, JioMoney also runs a payments bank in partnership with SBI. The app also offers great deals, coupons, and cashback directly on the mobile phone from local merchants.

If we look at Jio Infocom's annual financial statements for the year ending 2019, the company has increased its revenue from operations significantly by 91.8% to Rs 39051 crore from Rs 20355 crore in the previous fiscal. It’s total expenditure incurred during the last financial year also jumped by about 79.3% amounting to Rs 34,485 crore from Rs 19,227 crore in FY18.

As a result, it has witnessed a three-fold increase in its net losses which stood at Rs 2982 crore. Last year, the net losses for the bank amounted to Rs 746 crore.