After the IPO of records on Wall Street, Alibaba gets the official green light for the creation of a private bank. This was announced today by the "China Banking Regulatory Commission", specifying that the Chinese e-commerce giant will be the majority shareholder with 30% of the capital of the new institution, which will be based in the province of Zhejiang (in eastern China) , where the group has its headquarters.
Other shareholders will be the private conglomerate Fosun (with 25%), the automotive supplier Wanxiang (18%) and the investment company Yintai (16%).
Aiming to diversify business, in June 2013 Alibaba launched “Yu'ebao”, an investment product that offers a higher rate of return than Chinese bank deposits, also offering it to users of its “Alipay” electronic payment system.
“Yu'ebao” has been subscribed by over 100 million customers, who have invested around 580 billion yuan (equal to 74 billion euros) in one year.
