Yu'E Bao deposits exceed 250b yuan

Yu'E Bao (Leftover Treasure), an Alibaba personal finance product, now has 49 million users with aggregate deposits of 250 billion yuan ($41 billion). [Photo/icpress.cn]

BEIJING - Yu'E Bao (Leftover Treasure), an Alibaba personal finance product, now has 49 million users with aggregate deposits of 250 billion yuan ($41 billion).

Usership has grown in the past fifteen days and deposits are up by 64.7 billion yuan, 35 percent, compared with the end of 2013. Six million new users have signed up, figures from Alipay and Tianhong Fund showed.

Yu'E Bao is an online fund established by Alipay, China's largest third-party payment platform and subsidiary of Alibaba, together with the private Tianhong Fund.

Thanks to its cooperation with Alipay in Yu'E Bao, Tianhong Asset Management Co Ltd has overtaken China Asset Management Co Ltd (China AMC) to become China's largest fund company in terms of assets, industry figures showed.

Tianhong was ranked second at the end of last year 34.3 billion yuan behind China AMC.

Yu'E Bao was launched in June last year, giving millions of users the option of directly channeling spare money in their accounts into high interest funds.

With a minimum threshold at just one yuan (most wealth management products by banks demand at least 50,000 yuan) and returns far above bank deposit rates, Yu'E Bao was an instant hit, especially among young people whose driblet savings are largely ignored by banks.