Baidu, China’s biggest search engine, emerged as the newest threat to the country’s banking sector in late October.
Teaming up with an asset-management company, it offered an investment product, targeting an 8 per cent return and aiming to raise Rmb1bn ($160m). Within four hours, Baidu attracted more than 120,000 investors and hit the Rmb1bn mark.
Relative to the Rmb105tn of deposits at Chinese banks, the Baidu fund is like a speck on a vast canvas. But it is just one of a series of developments – from online fund products to interest rate liberalisation – that are starting to change the face of Chinese banking. The competition for cash deposits is heating up, upending the certainties of the sector.
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