Fund companies turn to Taobao to win customers

Taobao, a shopping website owned by e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, has become a new sales channel for fund investors.

The website has attracted about 20 fund management companies after it launched a wealth management channel in July.

"Fund companies are opening online stores on Taobao, but we are only providing a trading platform and will not need any other licenses," said company spokeswoman Wang Ying.

Alipay — Alibaba's payment service provider — will handle the online payment process for certain products. Alipay has a license to offer payment services for fund management companies. Wang said that neither Taobao nor Alipay will be directly involved in the sale of fund products.

An unidentified company source told the 21st Century Business Herald that Taobao plans to prioritize financial business and wants to attract more fund management companies to its Web platform.

For instance, Bank of Communications Co Ltd — one of the country's largest banks — sells some of its fund products on Taobao. The bank is offering six types of funds, but investors can only make reservations online and have to visit a bank branch to complete the transaction.

Some investors welcomed the new service, which enables them to quickly access important information about the financial products.

"I think that selling fund products online is a good way to give investors more choice," said Wang Huiqin, a 46-year-old fund investor in Shanghai.

"It allows me to get a better insight into the market and will enable me make better investment choices."

Tao Qian, a sales channel manager with a Shanghai-based fund company, said that online sales may challenge traditional channels such as banks and fund companies.

However, Tao said he believes that the impact will not be significant in the short term because it takes a long time to cultivate a new channel and to get investors used to it.

"Online retailers may have an advantage in terms of easy access to a large database of buyers' information, and they have techniques to dig the data to find potential fund investors," Tao said.

However, it's not easy to turn those potential buyers into real investors who are attracted to fund products in the same way as they are attracted to toys, cosmetics or groceries, Tao added.

But the rapid development of e-commerce is expected to add more techniques to the array of tools at the disposal of the fund industry, said Li Ying, head of the fund department of the China Securities Regulatory Commission.

Meanwhile, some investors said that they have concerns about the safety of buying investment products online.

"I will not risk my money before detailed regulations have been issued on the online trading of fund products," said Zhang Xinchen, a fund investor in Shanghai.