Archives December 2014

Tencent’s private bank to open soon

First of a group of firms to start banking operations

Internet giant Tencent Holdings will be the first among a batch of private companies to start its banking business soon after getting approval from the banking regulator, which analysts said Sunday will help finance the country’s cash-starved small businesses.

China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC), the country’s top banking regulator, said in a statement on Friday that it has granted approval to Tencent, China’s largest Internet company by market value, to start its banking operations.

WeBank, founded by Tencent, Shenzhen Baiyeyuan Investment Co and Shenzhen Liye Group, is the first one among five private banks that had been approved by the CBRC in the second half of 2014 to open its door to clients.

Financial news portal caixin.com reported on Friday that WeBank would start its operations on December 28.

WeBank, with a registered capital of 3 billion yuan ($490 million), has a business scope that includes personal banking, corporate banking and international banking.

WeBank would focus on serving individuals as well as small and medium-sized enterprises with innovative financial products based on its social networking platform WeChat, Xu Hongcai, director of the Department of Information under the China Center for International Economic Exchanges, a Beijing-based think tank, told the Global Times on Sunday.

Tencent, the operator of -China’s most popular instant messaging app WeChat with over 468 million monthly active users by the end of September, has advantages in online payment, experts said.

Given the firm’s large number of users, WeBank is expected to abandon the traditional way of accepting money deposits by setting up branches, Xu said.

The country’s cash-starved small businesses, which find it hard to get loans from existing commercial banks, could enjoy more flexible online financial services offered by banks such as WeBank, he noted.

Analysts expect that following the launch of Tencent’s bank, reforms in China’s banking industry will be accelerated in 2015 to promote the process of opening China’s banking sector to private capital.

On November 30, the Legislative Affairs Office of China’s State Council issued draft regulations containing 23 articles on the standardized deposit insurance system to solicit public opinions.

Yin Zhongli, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Sunday the deposit insurance system will be established in China for the first time starting in 2015 to guarantee the safety of private bank deposits and set up a bankruptcy mechanism for commercial banks.

In addition, ramped-up reforms in the finance sector that involve interest rate liberalization will also be improved next year to support the development of private banks, Guo Tianyong, a finance professor at the Central University of Finance and Economics, told the Global Times on Sunday.

Jack Ma becomes richest person in Asia


Jack Ma, founder and executive chairman of China’s Alibaba Group, has become the richest person in Asia.

The 50-year-old founder of China’s biggest e-commerce company surpassed Li Ka-shing, the Hong Kong property tycoon who has held the top spot in Asia since April 5, 2012, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

He has a $28.6 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg ranking. Li has a net worth of $28.3 billion.

Ma has added $25 billion to his fortune this year riding a 54 percent surge in the company’s shares since its September initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. At that scale, Alibaba is on the verge of becoming one of the 10 most valuable companies in the world.

Alibaba, whose online marketplaces?Taobao and Tmall?had 307 million active buyers in China as of September, saw revenue rise to 16.8 billion yuan ($2.74 billion) between July and September, according to Bloomberg.

Chinese social networking company Momo debuts on Nasdaq


Yan Tang (C, front), founder and chief executive officer of China’s mobile social networking platform Momo Inc. attends the ceremony of ringing the opening bell at the NASDAQ in New York, the United States, on Dec 11, 2014.

China’s mobile social networking platform Momo Inc. listed its shares Thursday on the NASDAQ global select market.

The company announced that its initial public offering of 16 million American depositary shares (ADSs) was priced at 13.5 US dollars per ADS for a total offering size of 216 million dollars.

Momo’s shares opened trading at 14.25 dollars a share under the ticker symbol “MOMO”.

Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, J.P. Morgan, and China Renaissance Securities are acting as joint bookrunners for the offering.

The company has granted the underwriters an option, exercisable within 30 days from the date of the final prospectus, to purchase up to 2.4 million additional ADSs at the price of 13.5 dollars.

Yan Tang, founder and chief executive officer of the company, said: “Momo was established in 2011. It’s still a very young company. We are caught in the era of rapid spread of mobile Internet in China, and have correct positioning for our products.”

“Funds raised will be used for research and development, marketing and downstream industries for equity acquisitions,” Tang said.

Momo connects people in a personal and lively way through a mobile-based social networking platform. With precise location- based features, Momo enables users to connect with each other and expand relationships from online to offline.

Momo’s platform includes the Momo mobile application and a variety of related features, functionalities, tools and services that it provides to users, customers and platform partners.

According to the company, Momo had 60.2 million active monthly users and an average of 25.5 million daily active users in September.

Beijing targets high-end industry investors

This year’s “Invest in Beijing” Fair, which aimed at attracting more investment to the city’s high-end industries, opened in Beijing on Dec 9.

As an annual investment promotion event taking place in the city since 2009, this year’s Invest in Beijing attached more emphasis on social and private capital’s involvement in its cutting-edge sectors, such as the new generation of information technology, biological medicines, as well as energy conservation, and environmental protection.

The organizing committee also set up a service station to offer face-to-face counseling for potential investors and companies in various fields, such as laws and regulations, investment environment and planning of industries.

Representatives from the city’s governmental departments, including the commission of science and technology, commission of education and commission of development and reform, came to explain the investment policies at the station, as did the investment promotion organizations from all the districts and counties of Beijing, as well as the city’s major industrial clusters —Zhongguancun Science Park, Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area and Beijing Tianzhu Free Trade Zone.

At the Fair, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform released a batch of pilot projects which call for social investment in public services and utilities, and the new list of industries that are prohibited or limited by the municipal government.

The China National Gold Group Corporation, the country’s biggest gold producer, Nanshan Group, a chemical firm based in east China’s Shandong province, and China Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection Group signed contracts worth 31.1 billion yuan ($5 billion), higher than the 27.9 billion yuan at the contract signing ceremony during last year’s “Invest in Beijing” Fair.

This year’s Fair highlighted the promotion of projects in high-end sectors and strategic emerging industries to help advance the city’s economic restructuring and strengthen its role as the country’s center of politics, culture, global exchanges and scientific and technological innovation.

More than 500 representatives from state-owned enterprises, large private companies, multinational corporations, leading players from different industries, as well as chambers of commerce from China and abroad attended the fair.

Ma Peihua, vice-chairman of the Central Committee of the China National Democratic Construction Association, Niu Youcheng, a member of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee and the city’s vice mayor Cheng Hong were present at the Fair.

Alipay bill brings memories and booming business

Yvonne Fang could not believe her eyes when she saw a total transaction volume of 500,000 yuan (81,000 US dollars) on Alipay over the past 10 years.

“I hope my husband never sees the bill,” she joked.

Alipay, an online payment platform launched by Alibaba in 2004, sent reports to its 300 million users on Monday detailing their spending over the past ten years.

The reports showed spending and investment through Alipay, together with an estimate of the users’ assets in another 10 years judging from the spending and investment history.

Reviewing her spending since 2007, Fang, 30, found the first item she bought online was a blouse for only 69 yuan, one third of the tag price. “I even showed it off to my foreign colleague and recommended she turn to online shopping,” recalled Fang, who now works at an international public relations company.

During her time spending online, she has grown from a fresh graduate into the mother of a two-year-old girl. The items she bought have also changed from clothes for her and her boyfriend, to furniture for their home, to baby things. “How time flies,” she said.

The record not only brought a lot of memories, but exposed just how big the e-payment business has become in China.

According to the overall report, also released on Monday, the number of Alipay transactions reached 42.3 billion, with Guangdong, Zhejiang, Shanghai, Beijing and Jiangsu the top five regions.

Apart from online shopping, the report also included payments for mobiles, electricity and gas, credit card payments and fund transfers; services that Alipay offers free of charge.

Mobile payments accounted for over 50 percent of total online payments in 2014. The less developed regions in the west grew much faster than the developed east.

The regions with the highest percentage of mobile payments in 2014 were autonomous regions of Tibet — where mobile payments were almost 63 of the total — Ningxia and Inner Mongolia, and Shaanxi Province.

Chen Jin, director of the research center of modern services with the University of International Business and Economics, said mobile payments in sparsely populated western regions with poor transportation, have grown rapidly in recent years because of the popularity of smartphones and mobile Internet.

Following Alibaba’s 25 billion dollar New York IPO in September, founder and board chairman of Alibaba Jack Ma told state media that Alipay will also go public someday, hopefully on the A-share market.

To that end, Alipay has started working with hospitals, stores and supermarkets, offering doctors appointments and payment services.

In Beijing, supermarkets such as Wu-Mart and Merry Mart are offering 10 percent discounts to encourage customers to pay their bills with their mobiles through Alipay.

Chen said Alipay, usually engaged in micropayment, has had to expand their community services with the “online to offline”, O2O, and provide convenience to compete with UnionPay.

“With no more card swiping and signature needed, I’d rather use Alipay for convenience,” said Cao Peng, a customer who paid his bill at a Merry Mart outlet in Beijing, adding that all he needed to do was to scan the bill code to make the payment with his smartphone.

Job hopping up, pay rises likely to be slower

Job hopping rose in 2014 as companies face challenges to their business, and the not-so-good news is that salaries are expected to rise slower next year, recruitment portal 51job.com said in a report yesterday.

The overall job hopping rate was 17.4 percent this year, 1.1 percentage points higher than that in 2013, the website said in a report covering 3,217 employers and 4,138 employees.

The report attributed the higher rate to employers failing to meet staff’s salary expectations and more companies involved in mergers and acquisitions.

Employers said they have raised salaries by 8.1 percent in 2014, down from the 8.3 percent in 2013, the report said.

They expect salaries to rise 7.9 percent in 2015.

“The economy in 2014 was relatively weak and investment slowed down especially in the real estate, manufacturing, energy and chemical industries,” it said.

“These factors made companies cautious about their salary strategy. We expect economic uncertainties will remain in 2015 and salary increase will further slow down next year.”

The high-technology sector will lead the salary rise with 9.4 percent projected for next year, followed by finance firms as they expand to new areas such as the Internet, the report said.

Chinese stock benchmark index regains 3,000-point mark

Chinese shares continued rising on Monday, with the benchmark Shanghai index jumping over 2 percent to regain the 3,000-point psychological mark, the first time since April 25, 2011.

China renews innovation drive

China’s State Council, the Cabinet, has unveiled a series of measures to promote independent innovation and encourage entrepreneurship.

According to a statement released Wednesday after a State Council executive meeting presided over by Premier Li Keqiang, the country must expand pilot programs for independent innovation and seek “multiplication” in social enthusiasm for innovation and entrepreneurship with the “subtraction” of government grip.

Since 2010, China has experimented with policies promoting scientific and technological innovation in the Zhongguancun National Innovation Demonstration Zone in Beijing.

The government will roll out six Zhongguancun policies to the rest of country, including new rules on research funds and equity financing for small enterprises.

There will also be some tax preferences for innovation demonstration zones. For instance, the income tax for equity incentives given to technical and managerial employees can be paid by installment within five years, according to the statement.

The statement added that China will do research in Zhongguancun concerning overseas talent, diversify corporate financing channels and support the construction of bonded warehouses.

China has six national innovation demonstration zones and plans for more.

70% rise in angel investments in China

A total of 547 angel investment deals have been signed in the first 11 months in China totaling $341.4 million, a 69.6 percent increase compared with the whole last year, according to a report of Zero2IPO Group on Wednesday.

Ni Zhengdong, chairman of Zero2IPO Group, said that lots of angel investment institutions and funds were set up in 2014, stimulated by the rising number of start-up deals.

Ni said 55 new angel investment funds have been set up this year and their scale has reached $700 million.

Venture capital companies also have focused on deals at early development stage and about 60 percent of their funds are invested in these deals, said the report.

Hebei in need of Beijing talent

About 50 key enterprises and government institutions are planning to recruit more than 4,500 talented students from 15 academic institutions based in Beijing, reported the Xinhua News Agency.

More than 1,700 gifted students with Master’s or PhD qualifications attended the recruiting conference held by Hebei Province’s government in Tsinghua University on November 16, and about 900 students were recruited. The enterprises and government institutions are recruiting talented students from 12 different fields, with the average annual salary being offered mostly above 100,000 yuan ($16,333). In recent years, the Hebei Province government has issued many new policies to introduce highly talented students with high paying jobs and good welfare.