JioBlackRock Investment Advisors targets mass affluent as entry point for personalised investment advice platform: CEO Marc Pilgrem

JioBlackRock Investment Advisors CEO Marc Pilgrem

• JioBlackRock offers digital investment advice for affluent clients
• Minimum investment starts at Rs 10,000, making advisory more accessible
• Platform aims to expand to all demat account holders, including retail investors

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JioBlackRock Investment Advisors has been deliberately designed for the mass affluent and affluent segment, which the CEO Marc Pilgrem described aa group that should have access to fiduciary-quality advice but has historically been excluded due to high costs, access barriers and dependence on sales-driven distribution models.

Speaking to Moneycontrol on the sidelines of the launch of ‘JioBlackRock Personalised Investment Advice’ on February 2, Pilgrem said, “The natural starting point is the mass affluent and affluent segment because that is who the product has been designed for.”

However, Pilgrem said the long-term ambition is to reach every demat account holder in the country, indicating that the platform will eventually cater to ultra-high-net-worth individuals, high-net-worth individuals, family offices and retail investors as well, even as the mass affluent and affluent segment remains the starting point of its market strategy.

Contrasting the model with traditional wealth structures, Pilgrem said conventional offerings such as PMS (Portfolio Management Services) and AIFs (Alternate Investment Funds) remain exclusive by design, with high entry thresholds and premium pricing.

Traditional models like PMS and AIFs are built for investors with large capital bases, typically requiring minimum investments of Rs 50-60 lakh for PMS and Rs 1 crore for AIFs. “Our minimum investment starts at Rs 10,000, which fundamentally changes who can access structured advisory. Anyone with that amount can engage with the platform. The pricing model is also completely different. Advisory fees are significantly lower, and implementation costs through our asset manager partners are minimal. That is what allows us to make professional advisory accessible rather than exclusive,” Pilgrem added.

Edited Excerpts:

What’s the strategy for JioBlackRock in the wealth space? This space is quite dominated by private banks. How do you propose to take a share of their pie?

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to wealth management. Traditionally, wealth management has emerged from a private banking model, which is a high-touch structure designed primarily for high-net-worth individuals. That model involves higher investment thresholds, premium pricing, and a relationship-manager-led interaction framework. What we are building is fundamentally different. Our approach is digital-first advisory. At its core, advisory simply means understanding a client and delivering financial solutions that respond to their needs over time. In the traditional banking model, advisory happens through discrete touchpoints. A relationship manager or wealth advisor meets the client periodically, understands their needs, designs an asset allocation, and offers recommendations. The frequency and quality of that engagement depend largely on how much the client is willing to pay and the nature of their relationship with the institution.

Our model replaces that with a continuous, technology-led journey. Customers go through a digital process where we understand their goals, financial needs, and risk appetite. This information is mapped through systems into a personalized asset allocation, which is delivered digitally. If clients choose to implement it with us, the process is seamless and frictionless. From that point onwards, portfolios are monitored continuously, not at quarterly or monthly intervals. The system tracks them 24/7 and nudges clients when market movements make rebalancing necessary to stay within predefined risk boundaries. This creates a fundamentally different kind of advisory experience.

How does this differ from the traditional PMS and AIF models?

The difference lies in both accessibility and economics. Traditional models like PMS and AIFs are designed for investors with large capital bases, often requiring minimum investments of Rs 50–60 lakh for PMS and Rs 1 crore for AIFs. These models are exclusive by design, with high entry barriers and premium pricing structures. In contrast, our minimum investment starts at Rs 10,000, which radically changes who can access structured advisory. Anyone with that amount can engage with the platform. The pricing structure is also fundamentally different. Our advisory fees are significantly lower, and the implementation costs through our chosen asset managers are also minimal. This brings the total cost of advisory and implementation to well below what traditional models charge, making professional-grade advisory accessible at a mass scale. The result is a proposition that is not only more inclusive but also structurally different in how it is delivered and priced.

Who is your target segment -- the mass affluent, HNIs, family offices or retail investors?

This kind of offering is naturally designed for the mass affluent and affluent segments. However, what we’ve seen globally is that the earliest adopters of digital-first advisory models have often been high-net-worth individuals. The reason is simple: it is an efficient and cost-effective way to manage a core portfolio. HNIs use this model for their core investments and continue using traditional banks for satellite portfolios and value-added services. It becomes a hybrid approach, where digital advisory handles the core wealth while relationship-led banking supports specialized needs.

At a broader level, India has around 215 million Demat account holders, which means 215 million people who have already expressed an interest in financial markets. A very large percentage of them have lost money, which indicates that access is not the problem, guidance is. That is the population we are ultimately building for: people who are already participating in markets but lack structured, fiduciary-grade advisory.

But given the scale of the opportunity, which segment do you realistically start with?

You cannot start with everyone at once. The natural starting point is the mass affluent and affluent segment because that is who the product has been designed for. The platform includes learning tools, a wealth checker, risk profiling, portfolio diagnostics, and asset allocation systems, all of which are structured for people who should have access to fiduciary-quality advice but historically have not had it due to cost barriers, access limitations, or dependence on sales-driven models. That gap is exactly what this platform is designed to fill.

Would you describe this as a DIY investment platform?

No, and that distinction is very important. DIY platforms are typically trading platforms where users are responsible for research, product selection, portfolio construction, and execution. That is not what this is. In our model, we handle the risk assessment, goal mapping, asset allocation, portfolio construction, product selection, monitoring, and advisory logic. The only element controlled by the user is execution, because this is advisory and not discretionary. We do not act on behalf of clients; they approve actions themselves. But all the analytical and structural work is done by us. This removes the burden of research, reduces decision paralysis, and replaces random investing behaviour with structured, guided decision-making.

In a market like India, people are used to relationship managers. How do you replace that trust and personalisation digitally?

True fiduciary advisory is extremely rare in India. There are only about a thousand registered investment advisors who operate as true fiduciaries. What most people experience as personalization today is often very shallow. Someone might say they want a 26 percent return, the advisor categorizes them as aggressive and recommends a high-risk product. That is not real personalization.

Real advisory requires a much deeper understanding of a person’s life context, including family responsibilities, dependents, education goals, upcoming financial obligations, housing plans, health risks, emergency buffers, and long-term financial resilience. Risk is not just about willingness; it is also about capacity. Someone may want high returns but may not be financially positioned to absorb the downside risk that comes with aggressive strategies. Our model is built around capturing both risk willingness and risk capability, creating a more responsible, realistic, and holistic advisory framework than surface-level relationship-based models.