After telecom and retail, this time Reliance Jio has set its eyes on the financial services market. Before understanding JFS' digital lending play, it is important to know that this is not the first time that the group is trying its hands at #fintech.
A long thread 👇 It has time and again made several fintech bets over the years – but most of which did not go beyond the trial stage. It's first bet was into payments. Jio formed payments bank, in partnership with SBI in April 2018. Even after 5 years, the bank is yet to see a formal launch.

Much awaited digital lending guidelines from RBI is out. The important point is that RBI is yet to decide on FLDG.
Here are recommendations (from Working Group on digital lending) accepted for "immediate implementation" 👇@livemint #digitallending #fintech - REs (registered entities) have to ensure that all loan servicing, repayment, etc shall be executed directly in their bank account without any pass-through account/ pool account of any third-party.

RBI has released a report on digital lending through online platforms and mobile apps. Interesting datapoints and reccommendations on digital lending and neobanks too. Let me start with #Isaiditfirst line :) [Thanks to a kind soul for sharing this with me 🙂] I have been reporting about how foreign lending players are entering India and borrowing NBFC licences. There are many NBFCs which were offering their NBFC as a service. I have been writing about this model since ET Prime days. One gfx that explains it better:

FOMO post. My fintech reporting started with a small yet my first break on Paytm when I was with VCCircle. Since then hv written several stories...at one point I even joined Paytm (for 2 months) until the realization hit that I can't stay away from journalism :) Some stories👇 techcircle.in/2016/06/08/exc…

First the banks were reluctant to be on UPI; then after realizing there's some name and fame involved, they welcomed UPI with open arms; now they want to stay away from the economically unviable UPI. Read the cost and conflicts of UPI @MorningContext. themorningcontext.com/how-upi-has-tu… Ever since CBDT asked banks to refund the fee that they started charging their customers for UPI #payments (post MDR ban), banks has been complaining that consumers are abusing the system, thanks to cashbacks.

This story is about Minance and its founder Anurag Bhatia - and all it was doing in the name of a fintech startup.
Few more tidbits 👇prime.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/76048321/… Minance did not have an IA licence until Feb 2019. "But, Anurag used to tell investment managers that if somebody asks, tell them we have the licence," an employee said.

Since #zeroMDR is the talk of the town now, here are some thoughts on how these decisions are impacting NPCI: - IBA has asked NPCI to scrap switching fees. The argument seems fair because if banks/fintech cos are not earning anything, they would definitely mind paying any fee to NPCI or any entity