Alibaba’s Micro-credit Affiliate Releases Yuebao-like Financial Product for Fixed Deposits

Given the huge success of mutual fund service Yuebao, Small and Micro Financial Service Group, Alibaba’s spin-off which is owned by chairman Jack Ma and a series of investors, released a new online financial product Zhaocaibao to deepen its forays into online financial field by setting eyes on fixed deposits.

Since fixed deposits are less liquid as compared with current deposits, over 50% of users aged around 30 years old has never put their money into fixed deposit accounts, according to data from Yuebao.

In traditional banks, individual users who are in urgent need of cash only can get the interests of current deposits when they want to withdraw the savings before fixed deposit scheme ends.

Zhaocaibao allows investors to withdraw anytime while enjoying the interests of fixed deposits. Individual investors can submit withdrawal requests before the loan life ends, the system will automatically create a loan under the name of old creditors and pairs it with new investors, enabling the old creditors to receive the funds instantly in their bounded Yuebao accounts.

Another interesting feature of Zhaocaibao is subscription. Yuebao users who connected their accounts to Zhaocaibao platform can pre-set expected interest rates, loan time, and financial product type. The system will place the orders automatically when any financial products complies with the conditions were listed within 30 days.

With Zhaocaibao, users can invest a minimum 100 yuan (US$16.25) to 1,000 yuan of funds.

The company now cooperates with more than 40 financial institutions of banks, funds, insurance companies to provide fixed interest financial services to both SMEs and individual investors on the platform.

Zhaocaibao was under testing since this April with turnovers hitting 11 billion yuan as of August 5, of which 90% come from Yuebao, introduced Yuan Leiming, CEO of the company. With more than 500K users now, the product claimed an annualized yield of 5.4% to 7%, with loan lives ranges between 3 months to 3 years.

Yuan added that Zhaocaibao do not manage the funds, but cooperate with financial institutions that provide guarantees to the capital. Users have to pay up to 0.2% of commissions upon funds redemption, of which 0.1% is being paid to the guaranty institutions, said Yuan.