Devesh
Core Member
Reliance Industries reached another milestone this week with its Jio Payments Bank getting the go-ahead to begin operations, Mint reported Thursday.
A venture with State Bank of India, the financial services startup is to be launched by the end of March, Mint said, citing people familiar with the plans.
Mukesh Ambani has been busy. His Jio telecom business clocked up 100 million fourth-generation mobile customers in less than six months -- not so difficult when you offer the service free.
As Gadfly's Andy Mukherjee noted last month, the battle is only just beginning for Jio to turn that massive user base into revenue, and then profit. Jio Payments Bank could help Ambani extract more from each customer, now that he's decided to start charging telecom fees in what's sure to be a tough fight for both mobile-phone and digital-payments share. Rivals in payments include One97 Communications Ltd.'s Paytm, Bharti Airtel Ltd.'s own offering and a government-promoted cross-bank system.
If Ambani wants to keep that brisk momentum, he should go a step further than launching his own payments bank and buy Paytm outright.
Paytm wallet users, end-2016: 177 million
A great beneficiary of demonetization, Paytm had 177 million wallet users by the end of December and processed 1 billion transactions last year. Buying the company, backed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., would give Jio between 77 million and 177 million new users (doubtless there'd be overlap). It would also help push the sector into the consolidation that's going to come sooner or later anyway.
PayTM: View: Mukesh Ambani's Jio should make an even bigger bet - Buy Paytm, Telecom News, ET Telecom
A venture with State Bank of India, the financial services startup is to be launched by the end of March, Mint said, citing people familiar with the plans.
Mukesh Ambani has been busy. His Jio telecom business clocked up 100 million fourth-generation mobile customers in less than six months -- not so difficult when you offer the service free.
As Gadfly's Andy Mukherjee noted last month, the battle is only just beginning for Jio to turn that massive user base into revenue, and then profit. Jio Payments Bank could help Ambani extract more from each customer, now that he's decided to start charging telecom fees in what's sure to be a tough fight for both mobile-phone and digital-payments share. Rivals in payments include One97 Communications Ltd.'s Paytm, Bharti Airtel Ltd.'s own offering and a government-promoted cross-bank system.
If Ambani wants to keep that brisk momentum, he should go a step further than launching his own payments bank and buy Paytm outright.
Paytm wallet users, end-2016: 177 million
A great beneficiary of demonetization, Paytm had 177 million wallet users by the end of December and processed 1 billion transactions last year. Buying the company, backed by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., would give Jio between 77 million and 177 million new users (doubtless there'd be overlap). It would also help push the sector into the consolidation that's going to come sooner or later anyway.
PayTM: View: Mukesh Ambani's Jio should make an even bigger bet - Buy Paytm, Telecom News, ET Telecom
