Reliance Strategic Investments renamed to Jio Financial Services

Reliance Strategic Investments, the financial services business of Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries, has been renamed to Jio Financial Services. The name change comes after the company was demerged from RIL on July 20.

The share price of Jio Financial was fixed at Rs 261.85 under the price discovery mechanism. A special trading session for RIL shares was held for one hour today to decide the price. Orders could be placed in this session held from 9 am to 10 am. Could also modify and cancel it. Jio Financial's rate was fixed according to the rate at which the highest order came on Reliance's stock.

Jio Financial has been included in the major indices today, but the stock will not trade till the listing. The listing of this stock can happen in the next two to three months. After the demerger, it has become the new individual company of Reliance, whose MD and CEO will be Hitesh Kumar Sethi. Earlier the name of this company was 'Strategic Investment Limited'.

Shareholders of Reliance Industries who had shares of the company at the end of the trading day on July 19 will get JFSL i.e. Jio Financial Services shares in the ratio of 1:1. For example, if you hold 100 shares of RIL, you will be given 100 shares of JFSL, but you cannot trade in JFSL shares till the date of listing on stock exchanges.

Jio Financial plans to start consumer and merchant lending business. Global financial services giant Macquarie in its report last year termed Reliance's financial services business as a major threat to Paytm and other fintech companies in terms of market growth.

Mukesh Ambani had announced last year to make Jio Financial a separate unit. While announcing this, he said that Jio Financial will be a technology-based business, which will offer financial products digitally across the country.

The company has six companies under its financial services business:

Reliance Industrial Investments & Holdings Limited

Reliance Payment Solutions Limited

Jio Payments Bank Limited

Reliance Retail Finance Limited

Geo Information Aggregator Services Limited

Investments in Reliance Retail Insurance Broking Limited

The demerger of Reliance Strategic Investments is a significant move by Reliance Industries to focus on its core businesses. The company is looking to expand its financial services business and become a major player in the digital lending space.