Reliance Jio is expected to make few significant and groundbreaking announcements today such as the launch of a payments bank, an affordable 4G feature phone, and enterprise products. According to sources close to the company, Reliance Industries chairman Mukesh Ambani will deliver the speech at 1.30PM. The speech will be broadcasted over Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
Reliance Jio Payments bank
Reliance is expected to announce the launch of a payments bank. Even though the company had released Jio Money mobile wallet, Ambani will announce measures to promote the use of the wallet aggressively in the wake of demonetization.
Technically, payments bank will be similar to a conventional bank. However, the services are provided by companies instead of banks. You will be able to avail all services through a payments bank.
In August 2015, the RBI granted licenses named Payments Bank license to 11 companies to provide conventional banking services. In addition to Reliance Industries, the payments bank licenses were given to Aditya Birla Nuvo, Airtel M Commerce Services, Cholamandalam Distribution Services, Department of Posts (DoP), Fino PayTech, National Securities Depository, Dilip Shantilal Shanghvi, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, Tech Mahindra and Vodafone m-pesa.
Airtel has already started to offer payments bank services on a pilot basis in Rajasthan. The company managed to acquire more than 10,000 customers within 2 days of launch.
Affordable LYF Easy 4G feature phone
During his speech, Ambani will most likely announce the launch of LYF Easy 4G feature phone priced under Rs. 1,500. In the past, Ambani had revealed that his goal is to reach out to the masses to fulfill Digital India ambitions. Hence, an affordable 4G smartphone could become a reality today. The handset will provide support for VoLTE, which is required for Jio. Reliance is gearing up to tap 70% market share in the feature phones segment.
Enterprise Products
Reliance will also announce the launch of enterprise solutions and products. As of writing this, we don’t have any information about the products.
After Reliance Jio started to provide Welcome Offer for free, each and every announcement made by the company was seen with great attention. The company has virtually disrupted the mobile connectivity segment by offering 4G LTE services for free for 3 months till December 31. There are reports that the company will extend the service until March 2017. However, this offer will be valid only for those customers who procure a Jio 4G SIM before December 3.
Today’s speech by Ambani is seen with great interest by people. The company has already announced free voice calls, lowest 4G data price including a low-cost VoLTE-enabled 4G smartphone at Rs. 2999.
