Reliance Industries’ retail arm, Jio Financial Services, is planning to enter the device leasing business by acquiring 360 billion rupees ($4.33 billion) worth of telecom equipment and devices from its own retail arm. These devices include routers and cell phones, according to a report by Reuters. A subsidiary of Jio Financial Services will then rent out this equipment to customers of Reliance’s telecommunications arm, Reliance Jio Infocomm, and will compete with companies like Hewlett Packard and Lenovo in the device-rental market.
Voting on this proposal is scheduled to conclude on June 22. Jio Financial Services was launched in 2023 with the aim of providing digital financial services to investors. The decision to list Jio Financial Services was made by Mukesh Ambani, the billionaire head of Reliance Industries, who announced that the firm would spin off Jio Financial Services and operate as a technology-led business delivering financial products digitally.
In recent years, Jio Financial Services has made several strategic partnerships and investments in FinTech startups. In April 2023, the company launched a joint venture with BlackRock to establish a wealth management and brokering business in India. This move aimed to attract the growing number of Indian retail investors as the country’s stock market continues to reach historic highs. Additionally, Reliance Retail partnered with SBI Card in October 2023 to introduce a credit card on India’s RuPay payment network. This co-branded card is a way for Reliance to enter the credit card space and provide customers with rewards at its over 18,650 stores.
The introduction of this credit card came at a time when credit card spending was on the rise in India, with RuPay network cards seeing an almost 20% year-over-year increase in usage. With this new venture into device leasing and expansion into FinTech services, Jio Financial Services continues to position itself as a leader in digital financial services for Indian consumers.
