Alibaba-linked money market fund sees first decline
Oct 24 (Reuters) - Yu'e Bao, the online money market fund offered by an affiliate of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, reported its first decline since its launch last year, Chinese asset manager Tianhong Asset Management Co reported on Friday.
Yu'e Bao's net value decreased nearly 7 percent to 534.89 billion yuan ($87.45 billion) in the third quarter from 574.16 billion yuan ($93.87 billion) in the second quarter, as interest rates for interbank deposits declined.
Easily accessible on smartphones, Yu'e Bao is China's biggest money market fund in terms of assets under management. It started in June, 2013 as a partnership between fund manager Tianhong and Alibaba-affiliated Alipay, China's biggest online payments platform. Alipay bought a majority stake in Tianhong in May.
Alibaba last week changed the name of Alipay to Ant Financial Services Group as a major push into the financial services industry.
Yu'e Bao attracted 2.5 million new users in the third quarter and had 149 million user accounts in total by the end of September.
($1 = 6.1164 Chinese yuan) (Reporting By Beijing Newsroom; Editing by Anand Basu)
