Indian non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) like Jio Financial Services and Piramal Finance are using artificial intelligence to streamline lending and collections. Piramal Finance reported that its AI-driven collections platform reached ₹1,019 crore in monthly hands-free recoveries in Q1 FY27, up from ₹84 crore in Q1 FY26. While these tools improve efficiency and profit margins, companies emphasize that AI is being used to support employees rather than replace them.
Indian NBFCs are rapidly adopting artificial intelligence to improve their operational efficiency and bottom-line performance. By automating routine tasks such as document verification, KYC processing, and collections, these companies are aiming to handle higher transaction volumes without needing to expand their workforce proportionally.
Piramal Finance and Jio Financial Services Lead AI Integration
Among the early adopters, Piramal Finance has reported significant financial benefits from its AI-first strategy. The company’s automated Intelligent Collections platform has seen a sharp increase in performance, with monthly collections reaching ₹1,019 crore in the first quarter of fiscal year 2027. This represents a twelvefold increase compared to the ₹84 crore reported in the same quarter of the previous year. According to the company, these automation efforts are directly impacting the profit and loss statement by lowering the cost of operations while increasing recovery speed.
Jio Financial Services is also building an AI-native operating model. The company currently utilizes approximately 130 AI agents to manage complex tasks in risk, compliance, and auditing. By deploying data analytics to process over 800 behavioral attributes, the firm has reduced credit assessment turnaround times by 76%. Jio Financial Services aims to lower operational costs by 30% through its current agentic AI initiatives, allowing it to maintain a leaner structure as it scales its digital lending and financial products.
Impact on Profitability and Workforce Strategy
For investors, the primary benefit of these AI deployments lies in the potential for improved profit margins. By reducing manual effort in back-office processes by up to 40%, NBFCs can potentially achieve better operating leverage—meaning revenue grows faster than the costs associated with managing that growth.
Despite fears that automation often leads to job cuts, both Piramal Finance and Jio Financial Services have publicly stated that their workforce remains stable. The companies are positioning AI as a tool to handle repetitive, rules-based tasks, which frees up staff to focus on high-value activities such as strategic decision-making and complex customer relationships. In fact, Piramal Finance used AI tools to assist in the recruitment of over 260 sales staff, highlighting the shift toward human-machine collaboration.
Risks and Future Monitorables
While AI offers efficiency gains, the sector faces inherent risks. As NBFCs become more dependent on internal algorithms for underwriting and fraud detection, the reliability of these models becomes critical. Any failure in automated compliance or fraud management systems could invite regulatory scrutiny from bodies like the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), which maintains strict oversight on digital lending practices.
Investors should track whether these efficiency gains in collections and credit assessment translate into sustained improvement in return ratios and lower credit costs in upcoming quarterly results. Additionally, as competition in the digital lending space intensifies, the ability of these firms to maintain their technology-driven cost advantage while managing potential data security and model-bias risks will be key to long-term performance.