Birlas’ big push in fin services

COMPETITION IS set to hot up in the financial sector space with the Aditya Birla group embarking on an initiative to become “one of the top three players” in the segment spanning across segments from asset management, lending to insurances.

Aditya Birla Capital Ltd (ABCL) has embarked on a journey of transformation, charting strong growth over the past two years, Kumar Mangalam Birla, Chairman of Aditya Birla Group, said in Mumbai on Tuesday.

Building on this momentum, ABCL on Tuesday announced the launch of its omnichannel D2C (direct to customer) platform ABCD, or Aditya Birla Capital Digital. “Through this platform, ABCL targets to add 30 million new users over the next 3 years. The launch marks a pivotal moment in its ambitious journey to drive growth and leadership and become a full-stack financial services provider,” Birla said.

On Monday, Jio Financial Services (JFS), the financial services arm of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) announced to form a 50:50 joint venture with the US based investment company Blackrock for setting up of a wealth management company and broking business. The announcement comes almost nine months after both the companies announced to form a JV for an asset management company in the country.

Apart from the Bajaj group which is a major player in the financial services sector, Kotak group, Edelweiss, the Tatas and IIFL are also big players in various segments of the sector.

“Our financial services business, Aditya Birla Capital, is now one of the fastest growing businesses within the group and has emerged as a key growth engine. I see this as a ‘coming of age’ moment for Aditya Birla Capital,” Birla said.

The Birlas had recently entered the paints business with an investment of Rs 10,000 crore.

“Guided by a maximum viable product approach, the ABCD D2C platform offers a comprehensive portfolio of 22 products and services, including facilities of a payment platform - such as UPI, bill payment, and online recharges, with financial services like loans, insurance, and investments along with comprehensive personal finance tracking such as ‘My Track’ among others,” Birla said.

The platform also features ABCD’S own stack of products such as portfolio consolidator, spend analyser, digital health assessment among others, and payment solutions to address the diverse needs of customers through a single platform, he said. “We formed ABCD to build the omnichannel layer that will help us acquire customers digitally at scale and meet all their financial needs through a unified digital-first platform,” said Vishakha Mulye, CEO, Aditya Birla Capital.