K V Kamath is independent director of RIL, non-exec head of financial arm

Reliance Strategic Investments, of which he is the non-executive chairman, will be renamed Jio Financial Services Ltd, and will be listed on the bourses pursuant to a demerger scheme

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) on Friday said it has appointed veteran banker KV Kamath as an independent director of the company for a period of five years.

Further, he has also been appointed as an independent director and non-executive chairman of Reliance Strategic Investments Ltd (RISL), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries, which will be renamed Jio Financial Services Ltd. This company will be listed on the bourses pursuant to a scheme of demerger.

Kamath will continue as independent director and non-executive chairman of Jio Financial Services Ltd upon consummation of the scheme and listing of the company on the stock exchanges.

Kamath is a seasoned banker who started his career at ICICI in 1971. Kamath retired from ICICI Bank as MD & CEO in 2009 and continued as chairman till 2015. He was later appointed as the first president of the New Development Bank set up by the BRICS countries from where he retired in 2020. He is currently the Chairman of the National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID).

Last month, RIL announced that it will demerge its financial services business and will create a new entity, which will be subsequently listed on the exchanges. JFS will acquire liquid assets to provide adequate regulatory capital for lending to consumers and merchants, and incubate other financial services verticals such as insurance, payments, digital broking, and asset management for at least the next three years of business operations. The regulatory licenses for the key businesses are in place, the company had said.

JFS and its subsidiaries will focus on the digital delivery of financial products to democratise financial services access for 1.4 billion Indians. It also plans to launch a consumer and merchant lending business based on proprietary data analytics to complement and supplement the traditional credit bureau-based underwriting.