In July 2023, Reliance Group’s Jio Financial Services (JFS) and BlackRock Financial Management Inc. announced the creation of a 50:50 joint venture.
On 3 October 2024, the capital market regulator gave its in-principle approval to the setup of Jio BlackRock Mutual Fund.
Consequently, on 28 October 2024, Jio Financial Services and BlackRock Inc. announced the incorporation of two ventures: Jio BlackRock Asset Management Private Limited and Jio BlackRock Trustee Private Limited.
In May 2025, Jio BlackRock Mutual Fund received approval from the regulator to start a mutual fund business in India, and since then, it has created a lot of buzz.
So, should you consider Jio BlackRock Mutual Fund?
How the Mutual Fund Will Operate
Jio Financial Services is providing full-stack financial services to customers, facilitating them to borrow, transact, save and invest seamlessly.
BlackRock is one of the world’s leading providers of investment, advisory and risk management solutions. It manages assets over US $11 trillion across asset classes and investment strategies.
This is BlackRock’s re-entry into the Indian mutual fund business after it ended its JV with DSP Investment Managers nearly five years ago (in August 2018).
The Jio BlackRock joint venture counts on each other’s strengths: Jio Finance with its digital reach and BlackRock’s deep investment research. It follows a ‘digital first’ approach to reach out to retail and institutional investors.
Jio BlackRock Mutual Fund will use BlackRock’s proprietary ALADDIN technology platform for its product launches.
What is ALADDIN?
It is an acronym for Asset, Liability, and Debt and Derivative Investment Network. It is said to be the software language of portfolios.
The ALADDIN platform uses sophisticated risk management analytics with data management and processing capabilities to help clients manage their portfolios across various asset classes, including equity, fixed income, FX, and derivatives.
As per BlackRock, as a central processing system for investment management, ALADDIN integrates and connects functions that help manage money.
With access to real-time data, it helps in analysing investment risk and making informed investment decisions and potentially enhances the performance of assets being managed.
ALADDIN brings together people, processes, and systems to help support a seamless investment process. It fits in well with Jio Financial Services’ technology innovation and dependence.
Jio Financial Services Leveraging Technology
In this day and age of digitisation, companies that have used technology have been able to grow and serve investors at large.
Jio BlackRock has introduced access to their mutual fund schemes on the MyJio app, marking a new phase in investment accessibility.
The Three Schemes
- JioBlackRock Liquid Fund
This is an open-ended liquid fund. The scheme seeks to generate regular income through investment in a portfolio comprising money market and debt instruments with residual maturity up to 91 days.
The investment strategy is generating regular returns through a portfolio of debt and money market instruments, seeking to capture the term and credit spreads.
It endeavours to develop a well-diversified portfolio of debt and money market instruments.
The scheme will benchmark its performance against the Nifty Liquid Index A-I and is managed by Arun Ramachandran, Vikrant Mehta, and Siddharth Deb.
The minimum investment in this scheme is Rs 500 (for lump sum as well as SIP).
It is for investors wanting to park money for the short term, for a few months to up to a year, who want to keep the money aside safe and an alternative to parking it in a savings bank account.
- JioBlackRock Overnight Fund
This is an open-ended scheme investing in overnight maturity debt securities with relatively low interest rate risk and credit risk.
Its objective is to generate regular income through investment in a portfolio comprising debt and money market instruments with overnight maturity.
The scheme benchmarks its performance against the Nifty 1D Rate Index and is managed by the same fund managers who are handling the Jio BlackRock liquid fund.
Also, the minimum investment in this scheme is the same as for the liquid fund, i.e. Rs 500 (for lump sum as well as SIP).
It is for investors who wish to keep their money safe for a few days or weeks, for very conservative investors who want instant liquidity.
- JioBlackRock Money Market Fund
This is an open-ended debt scheme investing in money market instruments such as certificate of deposits (CDs), commercial papers (CPs), repurchase agreements (repos), treasury bills (T-bills), etc.
The investment objective of the scheme is to generate regular income through investment in a portfolio comprising of money market instruments with residual maturity up to 1 year.
The strategy is to generate regular returns through a portfolio of money market instruments, seeking to capture term and credit spreads. It endeavours to develop a well-diversified portfolio of money market instruments.
The investment opportunities will be assessed based on the interest rate risk, credit risk, concentration risk, and liquidity risk, among other parameters.
The scheme will benchmark its performance against the Nifty Money Market Index A-I.
It is expected to carry moderate risk (as per the risk-o-metre) for investors wanting to invest money for the short term (a little over a year or so).
Like the other two schemes, JioBlackRock Money Market Fund, the minimum investment amount is Rs 500 (for lump sum as well as SIP).
All schemes of Jio BlackRock Mutual Fund provide only the direct plan and growth option, intending to keep the cost of investing low for investors.
Who Leads JioBlackRock Asset Management?
Sid Swaminathan is appointed as the joint venture’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer.
He brings with him a wealth of knowledge and has over two decades of experience across asset classes, investment styles, and geographies.
Swaminathan has served as Head of Index Equity for EMEA (Europe, the Middle East, and Africa) and APAC (Asia Pacific) at BlackRock in London, where he managed US$ 1.25 tn in assets.
Before that, he led the fixed income portfolio management for EMEA at BlackRock, overseeing systematic and indexed strategies.
Conclusion
Investing in mutual funds involves thoughtfully considering their overall performance track record and not just the returns. This is because for every level of return you seek, there is risk.
Also, pay attention to your personal risk profile, broad investment objective, the financial goals you wish to address and the time at hand to achieve those goals.
Invest sensibly and be a thoughtful investor.
Happy Investing.
Disclaimer: This article is for information purposes only. It is not a stock recommendation and should not be treated as such. Learn more about our recommendation services here…
The website managers, its employee(s), and contributors/writers/authors of articles have or may have an outstanding buy or sell position or holding in the securities, options on securities or other related investments of issuers and/or companies discussed therein. The content of the articles and the interpretation of data are solely the personal views of the contributors/ writers/authors. Investors must make their own investment decisions based on their specific objectives, resources and only after consulting such independent advisors as may be necessary.