In less than eight months, Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's money market fund, Yu'e Bao, has attracted 400 billion yuan ($66.0 billion) in assets under management, more than the customer deposits held by the five smallest listed Chinese banks.

 

Similar online products from Baidu Inc and Tencent Holdings Ltd also contributed to a fall of one trillion yuan in traditional bank deposits in January.

 

"Yu'e Bao and similar products are posing a very strong competitive challenge to banks," said Zennon Kapron, head of Kapronasia, a finance and technology consultancy based in Hong Kong. "Although the amount of money that (online products) have attracted is still small as a portion of banks' overall deposit base, it's very significant in terms of the speed at which they've grown."

 

Now traditional lenders, initially¹ caught flat-footed, are striking back.

 

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China , Bank of China , Bank of Communications and Ping An Bank have all launched new products in recent weeks that match the attractive features of Yu'e Bao.

 

Banks are also lobbying regulators to introduce curbs² on the growth of on-line funds offered by non-banks.

 

Ultimately, however, competition for deposits will drive up banks' funding costs and crimp profit margins³ this year.

 

As China gradually moves to liberalize deposit interest rates, banks will be forced to compete among themselves to attract customers, which means offering higher yields.

 

The development of new deposit-like money market products designed to compete with online rivals will further accelerate the trend toward higher funding costs.

 

"It's going to negatively affect bank margins. Costs will go up," said May Yan, Asia ex-Japan banks analyst⁴ at Barclays Capital in Hong Kong.

点击收听单词发音