China’s annual National People’s Congress (NPC) has started with an interesting focus on online funds.

中国一年一度的“两会”召开之际，各方有一个有意思的关注焦点：在线基金。

Zhou Xiaochuan, governor of the People’s Bank of China, and two other central bank officials were cornered by Chinese journalists on the second day of the NPC after some delegates from the financial sector urged stricter supervision of the online funds.

中国央行行长周小川和另外两名央行官员在两会的第二天受到记者追问。此前，一些金融业与会代表敦促有关方面收紧对在线基金的监管。

Online funds have taken the banking sector by storm since the first was launched in July last year by Alibaba, one of China’s biggest internet companies. Its fund, Yu’e Bao, has attracted deposits of more than Rmb 410bn ($67bn) from more than 81m users.

自中国最大互联网公司之一阿里巴巴(Alibaba)去年7月推出首只在线基金以来，此类基金已给银行业带来一场风暴。阿里巴巴的基金“余额宝”已从逾8100万用户手中吸引了超过4100亿元人民币（合670亿美元）的存款。

Conventional banks are fighting back by urging tougher supervision, launching similar products and raising their deposit interest rates, but with little success so far.

传统银行正在反击，它们敦促实施更严厉的监管，并推出了类似的产品和提高了自己的存款利率，但迄今收效甚微。

Ma Weihua, retired party secretary of state owned China Merchants Bank, the sixth biggest commercial bank in China, said Yu’e Bao was meaningless to the real economy and merely playing a game of rotating money, because it invests mainly in financial market instruments including money market funds.

中国第六大商业银行、国有的中国招商银行(China Merchants Bank)已退休的党委书记马蔚华表示，余额宝对实体经济没有任何意义，只不过是在玩钱转来转去的游戏，因为它主要投资于金融市场工具，包括货币市场基金。

Governor Zhou told the assembled journalists (many of whom are investors in Yu’e Bao) that the regulators would not close down such funds but changes in their supervision were in preparation.

周小川对围着他的记者（其中许多记者是余额宝的投资者）表示，监管机构不会取缔此类基金，但正准备完善针对它们的监管方式。

“Financial business on the internet is a new thing, so the current policy, supervision and coordination could not adapt to and need to be completed,” he said. “But in general, financial policy supports the application of technology, so it needs to follow the footsteps of time and technology.”

“互联网的金融业务发展算是一个新事物，所以过去的政策、监管、调控等各个方面不能完全适应，需要进一步完善。”他表示，“但整个来讲金融业的政策是鼓励科技的应用，因此也是要跟上时代与科技的脚步。”

Zhou also said the recent volatility of the renminbi was “normal” and that he would elaborate further at a press conference to be held in the coming days.

周小川还表示，人民币近期的波动是“正常的”，他将在几天后的新闻发布会上作进一步阐述。

Pan Gongsheng, a vice governor of the PBoC, made a similar statement at one of the NPC’s meetings. He said online finance played a positive role in the liberalisation of interest rates and offered more investment channels for ordinary people; but it had two problems, namely an absence of supervision and inherent risks.

中国央行副行长潘功胜在全国政协经济组分组讨论会上作出类似表态。他表示，互联网金融在推进利率市场化和服务百姓投资渠道等方面发挥了积极作用；但存在两方面问题：一是监管缺失，二是具有一定的风险性。

Yi Gang, another vice governor, noted that online funds were seen as being risky in terms of liquidity and price volatility, and said the central bank would further observe changes under way in the market.

中国央行的另一名副行长易纲指出，在线基金在流动性和价格波动方面被视为有较高风险。他表示，央行将进一步观察市场上正在发生的变化。

The returns offered by online funds have decreased lately due to an uptick in liquidity which has moderated interbank market rates. The annualised return of Yu’e Bao has dropped to 5.971 per cent, the first time it has fallen below 6 per cent since its launch.

在线基金提供的回报近来有所下降，原因是流动性状况出现好转，促使银行间市场利率走低。余额宝的年化回报率已降至5.971%，这是其推出以来首次跌破6%。