Govt's policy easing lowers returns, as demand for short-term cash drops
The recent monetary policy easing by the government caused a drop in the 7-day annualized return rate offered by a number of China's online monetary funds, experts said Wednesday.
According to a report put together by domestic finance service website RONG360.com on its official website on Tuesday, out of the 68 online funds monitored by the website, only 10 had a 7-day annualized return rate of more than 5 percent, and 6 funds had a 7-day return rate of lower than 3 percent.
Most of these online monetary funds have seen their 7-day return rate drop in recent months. Yu'ebao, one of China's largest monetary funds co-launched by Alipay under domestic e-commerce giant Alibaba Group and Tianhong Asset Management Co (Tianhong), saw its 7-day return fall from around 4.6 percent at the beginning of January, to 3.46 percent on Wednesday.
Caifubao, a monetary fund jointly operated by Internet giant Tencent Inc and China Asset Management Co, offered a 7-day return at 3.01 percent on Wednesday, compared to around 5.5 percent at the beginning of June.
The monetary fund named "Jindongxiaojinku", which is operated by e-commerce company Beijing Jingdong Century Trade Co together with two fund firms, saw its 7-day return fall to 2.74 percent Wednesday, down from around 7.0 percent at the start of May.
Another two online monetary funds Baidubaizhuan and Fuqianbao also saw their 7-day return fall to around 3 percent at the end of June, down from 4.2 percent and 5.1 percent respectively on April 1.
Xi Junyang, a professor with the Department of Finance at the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, said that the majority of the money collected by online fund products like Yu'ebao is loaned to banks, mostly on a short-term basis, and at a relatively high interest rate.
"Online funds' return rate, which grows in proportion to the interest rate of their loans to the banks, is closely related with the liquidity in the markets. When banks are short of money amid tight liquidity, online monetary funds have relatively higher returns. Loose liquidity, on the contrary, would lower banks' needs for capital provided by monetary funds, and that would in turn lead to lower returns," Xi said.
Li Jing, who worked as senior account manager at China CITIC Bank, echoed Xi's views, saying that the monetary policy easing launched by the Chinese government in recent months, such as the interest rate cuts, have led to a drop in the return rate of online monetary funds.
A Shanghai-based account manager at China Construction Bank (CCB) who declined to disclose her name, told the Global Times on Wednesday that the government's efforts to ease the 75 percent loan-to-deposit ratio in recent months have also affected the return rate of monetary funds.
"Most commercial banks don't have enough deposits to meet the compulsory rule of 75 percent loan-to-deposit ratio. Therefore, they often need to borrow short-term funds at certain times of a year, when they undergo the loan-to-deposit ratio check," she said.
The CCB account manager also noted that as the requirements on loan-to-deposit ratio eased in recent months, banks had lower demand for short-term cash, and the interest rates charged by monetary funds fell accordingly, which hurt the funds' ability to repay the buyers of relevant products.
However, statistics show that some online funds continue to be popular among investors, even though their returns have dropped.
According to a report published by Tianhong on its website on June 15, the number of customers of Yu'ebao has grown steadily since the fund was established in June 2013, standing at 200 million as of May 31.
Lü Qiaoli, a Shanghai-based user of Yu'ebao, told the Global Times on Wednesday that she didn't care that much about the product's return rate. "Safety and convenience are more important to me," she said.
