66% of Chinese planning Internet finance investment

BEIJING - About 66 percent of Chinese are planning to divert some proportion of their bank deposits to Internet finance products, according to new survey results.

The online survey, conducted by the China Youth Daily newspaper with 10,234 respondents, also indicated that about 84.7 percent of Chinese people have invested in some kind of Internet wealth management product, according to a report in the Thursday edition of the newspaper.

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Eighty-two percent of the people surveyed said they are content with their investment income and most of them listed higher return rates and greater convenience as major reasons to choose Internet finance.

However, the report also noted potential dangers lurking amid the popularity.

Some 55.4 percent of the respondents admitted they do not know much about the way Internet finance funds operate and 37.5 percent said they have no idea about the risks of their investments.

More than 40 percent said they have concerns about either account security or possible insolvency of the funds.

According to the poll, improvements to keep funds secure is the most pressing demand of 43.7 percent of investors, while 12 percent expressed hope that Internet finance may prompt reforms in traditional banks.

Sixty-three percent of investors in Internet finance said they put their money into Yu'ebao, an online fund established by Alipay, China's largest third-party payment platform and subsidiary of Alibaba, and the private Tianhong Fund.

By the end of last month, Ye'ebao had amassed over 500 billion yuan ($81.4 billion) with more than 81 million users signing up, outnumbering investor in China's A share market.

Over 70 percent of the respondents were born in the 1980s and 1990s while only 1 percent of those who replied to the survey were around the age of 60.

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