Li Mingyang only joined Alibaba’s investment platform one month ago but he has already transferred almost all the cash in his bank account – nearly Rmb200,000 ($32,000) – to the online fund.
李明洋（音译）一个月前刚刚开始投资阿里巴巴(Alibaba)的投资平台——余额宝，而如今他已把自己银行户头里几乎所有资金——近20万元人民币（合3.2万美元）——都转移到这家在线基金了。He is far from alone. More than 30m people in China have signed up to Yu’E Bao, or “Leftover Treasure”, only six months since its launch.
他的情况远非个例。自上线仅6个月以来，余额宝在中国已有了逾3000万注册用户。Initially pitched by the Chinese ecommerce group as a platform for its users to manage excess funds in their online payment accounts, Yu’E Bao is becoming something far more powerful: a straight-up substitute for traditional bank deposits.
起初，阿里巴巴对余额宝的宣传定位是，帮助用户管理在线支付账务里富余资金的平台。如今，余额宝正在变成一款比这一定位强大得多的产品，即传统银行存款的直接替代品。
“There’s no point in keeping money in the bank any more. This is just as reliable, more flexible and you can earn a lot more from it,” Mr Li says.
李明洋表示：“再也没什么理由把钱存银行了。（余额宝）这种方式同样可靠，又更灵活，收益也大多了。”A quick swipe of the Yu’E Bao app on his phone shows the Shanghai-based editor that he has earned more interest on his account over the past day than 94 per cent of other local users – an indication Mr Li is one of the bigger Alibaba converts, though not the biggest. “This is fun, almost like a computer game,” he says with a belly laugh.
他在手机里的余额宝应用上轻划一下，屏幕上显示出，这位生活在上海的编辑过去一天里赚取的收益超过了94%的上海用户——这表明李明洋是一位较大的阿里巴巴“皈依者”（尽管不是最大的）。他大笑道：“这很有意思，几乎像是在打电脑游戏。”For every Rmb12 that companies and individuals have deposited in Chinese banks since June, they placed roughly Rmb1 in their Yu’E Bao accounts, according to Financial Times calculations based on official data. While it remains tiny compared with total deposits in the Chinese banking system, this migration of cash from banks to the Alibaba platform is only speeding up.
据英国《金融时报》基于官方数据的计算，自6月份以来，中国企业和个人每向中国各银行存入12元人民币，就会往余额宝户头存入约1元人民币。尽管与中国银行体系的存款总额相比，余额宝吸纳的资金仍然很少，但资金从银行流向余额宝的速度正在不断加快。In the process, it threatens to upend the rules of China’s state-protected financial sector, eroding banks’ profit model and shifting power to savers in a way that was scarcely imaginable at the start of this year.
在这一过程中，余额宝可能会颠覆中国受到国家保护的金融业行业的规则，逐步破坏银行业盈利模式，并将权力转移至存款人一方，这在今年年初的时候是人们几乎无法想象的。Other Chinese tech companies are getting in on the act. Tencent, developer of the hugely popular messaging app WeChat, is said to be designing a fund platform similar to Yu’E Bao. Baidu, the search engine company, began marketing investment products in October.
其他中国科技企业也在采取行动。广受欢迎的消息应用微信(WeChat)的开发者腾讯(Tencent)，据说也在设计一个与余额宝类似的基金平台。搜索引擎公司百度(Baidu)则已于10月份开始推广其理财产品。“Internet companies, with their ability to instantly reach millions of consumers, have already started to subtly change the competitive dynamic in finance,” says Ernan Cui, an analyst with GK Dragonomics, a Beijing-based research firm.
总部位于北京的研究机构龙洲经讯(GK Dragonomics)的分析师Ernan Cui表示：“互联网企业能够即时联系到成百万名消费者，这已开始微妙地改变金融领域的竞争态势。”Some see it in even starker terms. “This could be a game-changer. It is the biggest threat to the low- and middle-income customer base of banks,” says an analyst with an international bank who asked to remain anonymous as he was not authorised to speak to media.
还有些人的看法则更一针见血。某跨国银行的一名分析师表示：“这可能会彻底改变游戏规则。就中低收入顾客群而言，互联网金融是银行面临的最大威胁。”这名分析师要求在本次报道中保持匿名，因为他尚未获得就此对媒体发表意见的授权。Richer customers have already started shifting their funds into banks’ wealth management products, which offer much better returns than regulated deposit accounts but have high minimum investment thresholds. With Yu’E Bao, users can invest as much or as little as they want.
手头更宽裕的顾客已开始将资金转移至银行的理财产品上，这类产品比利率受到管制的银行存款回报率更高，不过投资门槛很高。而余额宝用户的投资数额没有上限也没有下限。Moreover, just like demand deposits at banks, users can withdraw their money from Yu’E Bao whenever they want. But while demand deposits earn an annualised rate of 0.35 per cent in banks – a level capped by the government to ensure that banks have plump profit margins – Yu’E Bao rates have averaged about 5 per cent over the past month.
另外，和银行活期存款一样，余额宝用户能随时从余额宝账户提取资金。如今银行活期存款年利率只有0.35%（为了确保银行能获得丰厚的利润，政府将活期存款利率限制在这一水平），而过去一个月余额宝的平均年化收益率则为约5%。Little wonder that it has drawn such rampant demand. Launched in June, Yu’E Bao has in short order become China’s most successful money market fund. As of last month it had raised Rmb100bn, the first to reach that milestone.
因此，余额宝带来如此巨大的需求也就毫不奇怪了。自6月份上线以来，余额宝很快成为了中国最成功的货币市场基金。到上个月为止，余额宝已筹集了1000亿元人民币，是首只达到千亿级别的货币市场基金。Behind the Yu’E Bao brand name stands Tianhong Asset Management, in which Alibaba bought a majority stake in October. Tianhong invests all the Yu’E Bao cash in money market funds, mainly consisting of interbank loans and some short-term debt securities, according to analysts. So the cash still largely ends up with banks, but rather than paying a government-controlled rate for it, they pay whatever is the going market price for money.
站在余额宝身后的那家基金公司是天弘基金管理有限公司(Tianhong Asset Management)，今年10月阿里巴巴收购了该基金大部分股权。分析人士称，天弘将所有余额宝资金都投入了货币市场基金，主要包括银行间贷款及部分短期债务证券。因此，余额宝的现金大部分最终仍流入银行，不过这些现金的回报率是按照市场价格确定的，而不是按照由政府控制的利率确定。It is, in other words, ushering in interest rate deregulation in a big way. This week’s spike in Chinese interbank rates in part reflects the growing competition for deposits. Given that regulators have been loosening their grip on interest rates but want to proceed in a gradual manner, the success of Yu’E Bao and other internet-based money market funds poses a big challenge to that strategy and could yet invite more scrutiny.
换句话说，余额宝在以一种宏观方式走利率去监管化的道路。上周中国银行间利率的急剧攀升部分反映出银行间日益激烈的揽储竞争。监管机构一直在放松对利率的管制，不过他们打算以一种渐进方式推进利率市场化进程。有鉴于此，余额宝及其他基于互联网的货币市场基金的成功对这一渐进式策略构成了巨大挑战，并仍有可能招致严格审查。“The banking network will always have its place in the financial architecture, and the government will keep its hands on it, so I don’t think it will let Alibaba become a huge threat. It will be more of an addition,” says Billy Leung, an analyst with the RHB Research Institute.
RHB研究所分析师Billy Leung表示：“银行网络始终会在金融体系中占有自己的位置，政府也会继续插手。因此，我认为政府不会容许阿里巴巴发展为一个巨大威胁，阿里巴巴更有可能成为银行的一种补充。”Alibaba downplays the challenge Yu’E Bao poses to banks. “The users that our platforms are serving may not necessarily overlap with those that are being served by the traditional banking and financial services industry,” says Alipay, Alibaba’s online payment system.
阿里巴巴也在淡化余额宝对银行业构成的挑战。该集团在线支付系统支付宝(Alipay)表示：“我们的平台所服务的客户，与传统银行和金融服务业服务的客户不一定重合。”But in recent days Alibaba has launched an aggressive marketing campaign, plastering subway stations in Shanghai and Beijing with ads that leave little doubt the company has banks in its sights.
不过，阿里巴巴最近开始了一场咄咄逼人的营销活动。在北京和上海的地铁站里，贴着阿里巴巴的广告，这些广告的内容令人不能不怀疑它已将银行视为对手。“The Yu’E Bao annualised return is nearly 14 times higher than the demand deposit rate,” the ads blare. “It’s a wallet that makes you money.”
广告中高调声称：“余额宝累计收益率（年化）……是活期存款的近14倍。”还有句广告词说：“支付宝钱包，会赚钱的钱包。”