Yu'ebao shows slow Q2 growth

The growth of Yu'ebao, China's most popular Internet fund service, showed signs of slowing down as its new deposits shrunk significantly in the second quarter, according to a report from the Security Times on Tuesday.

Yu'ebao, an investment service jointly offered by Alipay, China's leading online payments provider, and TianHong Asset Management, reported aggregate deposits of 574.2 billion yuan ($91.9 billion) by the end of June.

The wealth management service attracted nearly 33 billion new deposits between April and June, totaling an average of 11 billion yuan every month during the second quarter, compared to the average of 118.6 billion yuan new deposits per month in the first quarter.

The growth of new deposits at Yu'ebao has skyrocketed ever since the service was launched in June 2013. The so-called grassroots wealth management product, which is designed to make it easy for Alipay users to invest their idle cash in their Alipay accounts and receive a higher interest rate than typical bank savings deposits, is the first of its kind to combine the convenience of the Internet with the sophistication of finance.

However, decreasing returns of Yu'ebao has caused slow growth to its momentum.