In 2016, Mukesh Ambani stood on stage and made a promise that seemed impossible. Jio would give away data virtually free and still build a profitable business. The telecom industry laughed. Six years later, Jio had 450 million subscribers and had driven three major competitors into extinction or merger.

Now imagine that same playbook applied to your money.

Last year, when Jio partnered with BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager with over $10 trillion under management, most people saw it as just another foreign partnership. But here’s what they missed.

India’s mutual fund industry manages around 50 trillion rupees. And yet, only 3-4% of Indians have ever invested in a mutual fund. That’s 1.3 billion people whose savings are locked in fixed deposits, gold, and real estate, earning returns that barely keep pace with inflation.

To put this in perspective, Americans invest approximately 55% of their savings in financial markets, whereas Indians invest around 3-4%.

That gap represents the single largest wealth creation opportunity in the world.

Blackrock’s Larry Fink knows this, Jio’s Mukesh Ambani knows this.

And more importantly, they know something that the incumbents don’t want to admit: that India’s investment industry is ripe for the kind of disruption that decimated the telecom sector.

Because what’s bigger than one 800-pound gorilla? Two 800-pound gorillas.

Zerodha*, India’s largest broker, has 15 million users. That’s very impressive, until you realise that Jio adds that many telecom subscribers in a single quarter. The entire Indian mutual fund industry has 40 million unique investors.

Jio has more customers in just Mumbai.

And unlike telecom, where Jio could simply outspend and outlast its competitors, financial services are about trust, not just technology.

You may switch your phone carrier for cheaper data, but will you hand over your life savings to the same company that provides your internet?

In today’s episode, we are asking the question that’s keeping every person working in financial services across mutual funds and brokerages awake at night.

Can Jio BlackRock do to investing in wealth what Jio did to telecom?

Joining hosts Praveen Gopal Krishnan and Rohin Dharmakumar for the discussion are Manish Jain, co-founder and CPO of Sahi Broking. Manish previously served as the head of product at Fisdom and was the SVP of product and digital transformation at Kotak Securities, and Nirav Karkera, who’s the head of research at Fisdom, a leading fintech platform for wealth management.

Welcome to episode 52 of Two by Two.

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Additional reading:

The motley crowd joining the great Indian mutual-fund rush….- https://the-ken.com/long_and_short/the-motley-crowd-joining-the-great-indian-mutual-fund-rush/

Jio Blackrock is not your usual Reliance offensive- https://the-ken.com/long_and_short/jio-blackrock-is-not-your-usual-reliance-offensive/

Additional listening:

Can Smallcase maintain its relevance in a changing market?- https://the-ken.com/podcasts/two-by-two/can-smallcase-maintain-its-relevance-in-a-changing-market/

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This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode.

If you liked this episode of Two by Two, please share it with your friends and family who would be interested in listening to the episode. And if you have more thoughts on the discussion, we’d love to hear your arguments as well. You can write to us at [email protected].