BlackRock and Jio Team to Offer Wealth Management in India

India’s Jio Financial Services has launched a joint venture with BlackRock.

The collaboration will establish a wealth management and brokering business in India, and comes less than a year after the two companies began an asset management venture, Reuters reported Monday (April 15).

Jio, part of the Reliance Group, said the venture is designed to tap into the lucrative wealth business in India, and will include the incorporation of a wealth management firm and, eventually, a brokerage company.

The Reuters report cited figures from Jeffries showing that wealth managers in India tend to $1 trillion to $1.2 trillion of assets owned by high-net-worth individuals. By creating a brokerage firm, Jio and BlackRock hope to woo the growing number of Indian retail investors as that country’s stock market hits historic highs.

The two firms announced their partnership last summer, with both sides investing $150 million in an asset management project.

Elsewhere in the world of wealth management, PYMNTS earlier this month wrote about the way open banking — a concept that emerged in the U.K. and Europe before gaining traction in the U.S. — has the potential to reshape the investment and wealth management landscapes.

“And by leveraging open banking APIs, third-party financial service providers can securely access a vast array of financial information from multiple banks and institutions, with user consent,” that report said. “This accessibility offers an opportunity to enhance services within the wealth management sector, ushering in a new era of transparency, efficiency and personalized solutions for investors across all demographics.”

A recent collaboration between open banking provider Neonomics and investment platform Endavu to scale the latter’s app via open banking is an example of this trend.

In announcing their partnership earlier this month, the companies underlined a growing number of people entering the investment landscape and the corresponding rise in consumer awareness regarding associated costs.

“However, despite its promise, the widespread adoption of open banking across sectors, including investment and wealth management, is not without its challenges,” PYMNTS wrote.

“Interoperability issues and varying API standards across regions and institutions can impede seamless integration and collaboration within the open banking ecosystem.”

GoCardless raised the standardization issue in a blog post last year, pointing out that the absence of set protocols for sharing data “can lead to inconsistencies in the quality and format of data, making it difficult for third-party providers to [analyze] and use the data effectively.”