TV blogger has second pop at fund

A TV financial commentator kept up his one-man campaign against online monetary fund Yu'ebao "out of national macroeconomic interests" on Monday.

"Yu'ebao and online monetary funds of its like push up financing costs and will eventually push up the costs of all products and services in people's lives," wrote Niu Wenxin in a blog published Monday on news portal sina.com.

Internet financing products forced banks to raise deposit rates, causing interest rates to "run out of the control of the central bank as the country embraces high economic risks," the China Central Television blogger argued.

When many companies went bankrupt from the increased cost of financing, Niu wrote, people will suffer from these Internet financing products.

Alipay, the third-party payment service provider of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group and co-founder of Yu'ebao, replied to Niu via its official Sina Weibo account Monday.

"Yu'ebao only wants to find a way to let ordinary people find financial services that suit their purposes at a low cost and without a threshold," read Alipay's reply.

In his personal blog on Sunday, Niu referred to the online fund platform as a "financial parasite sucking blood from banks."

He was challenged the same day by Alipay for misleading the public by quoting an incorrect commission rate.

Chinese analysts have questioned the logic of Niu's argument, doubting if Yu'ebao's small share of total deposits wield enough muscle to harm the national economy.

Niu had received "incredible verbal assaults from Net users," he also noted in his blog.