India Infoline

IIFL was founded on 18 October 1995, by Nirmal Jain, a 1986 graduate from University of Mumbai and an alumnus of Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Jain is among the few successful entrepreneurs post the economic liberalisation era in India ushered by PV Narasimha Rao. Jain was previously employed with Hindustan Unilever Limited. The company was founded as Probity Research and Services Private Limited which provided research on the Indian economy, businesses and corporates. The name was later changed to India Infoline Limited.

A few years into the business, the organisation found itself with clients which included research organisations, banks and corporates. They then began launching their research products to become more noticeable in the market. In the meanwhile, the dotcom revolution was beginning to take place in India. The website was created in 1999.

Taking the business one step ahead this group of consultants opened a trading portal 5paisa in 2000. Thus moved into the business of being a full service broking agency. During this time they widened their distribution network.

In 2001, the Indian dotcom industry saw a downfall. During this time, sustaining became tough. The organisation then decided to tie-up with leading Life Insurance company ICICI Prudential, thus putting to use its distribution network and becoming India's first corporate agent for insurance.

Today, IIFL Holdings Limited (Bloomberg Code: IIFL IN, NSE: IIFL, BSE: 532636) is India's leading integrated financial services group with diverse operating businesses, mainly Non Banking and Housing Finance, Wealth and Asset Management, Broking, Financial Product Distribution, Investment Banking, Institutional Equities, Realty and Property Advisory Services.

IIFL Holdings has a consolidated net worth of over ₹45 billion and is a global presence in Canada, United States, UK, Singapore, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Mauritius, and the UAE; an employee workforce of over 10,500, a network of over 2,250 service locations spread across India, over ₹233 billion loan assets under management; over ₹1,250 billion in wealth assets under advice, management and distribution; over 500 stocks under research and more than 300 of the world's top institutional investors relying on IIFL's research.

Controversy About Commingling of Clients Funds

On 19 June, 2023, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) passed an order restraining IIFL from accepting new clients for a period of two years, and imposing a penalty of Rs 2 crore. The order read, "The Noticee firstly didn’t assign its accounts appropriate nomenclature wherein it was keeping clients’ monies so as to clearly label them as ‘client accounts’. Additionally, it was mixing clients’ funds with its own funds before using those mixed funds for its own proprietary usage. In the end, it was using funds of its credit balance clients’ to not only fund trades of its debit balance clients but also to fund its own trades."

The Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) set aside the SEBI's order prohibiting IIFL to accept new clients in December 2023. Also the penalty was reduced to Rs 20 lakh from Rs 2 crore. SAT said that there has been no misuse of client funds. However, IIFL failed to change the nomenclature of the bank accounts of the clients. Considering it only as a technical breach, the penalty of Rs 20 lakh was deemed sufficient.