"Yu’e Bao?"
In the brightly lit Ali Headquarters, Taohua Island office.
Ma Liyun’s brows furrowed slightly, the corners of his mouth turned down, but a flash of pleasant surprise glinted in his eyes. The expression on his face was a mixture of joy and worry, appearing extremely conflicted.
"At its core, Yu’e Bao is just a fund distribution product. Its advantages are the ’one-yuan minimum investment and deposit or withdraw anytime’ feature. It changed the traditional fund redemption method to ’T+0.’ This move will drastically increase the account value of Orange Pay."
Lu Zhaoxi added.
What is account value?
It means there is money in the account. The more funds there are, the higher the account’s value.
Ever since Wealth Treasure was spun off from Ali Baba, Ma Liyun had been constantly thinking about other profit models.
As a payment tool, its core profit came mainly from third-party transaction fees.
Two years ago, before Liu Qiangdong had a falling out with Ma Liyun, the online payment tool used by Jingdong was Wealth Treasure. Later, he found Lao Ma’s transaction fees too expensive and switched to Orange Pay. At the same time, he acquired a payment license to prepare for the launch of Jingdong Pay.
Three months ago, Wealth Treasure and Orange Pay both obtained the "Securities and Futures Business Operation Permit" and the "Consumer Finance License." According to Ma Liyun’s plan, he was going to add a financial management module to Wealth Treasure to generate revenue.
But when Yu’e Bao burst onto the scene, he suddenly felt that his own operational strategy was inadequate. Chen Yansen’s strategy seemed much more suitable for Wealth Treasure.
Converting users’ account balances into investment funds that could be deposited and withdrawn at any time—this gave users a perfect use case.
Furthermore, it could combine consumption and financial management, creating a positive feedback loop.
"Don’t you think a product like Yu’e Bao is a natural fit for Wealth Treasure?"
Ma Liyun asked with a grin, clasping his hands together. He inadvertently revealed the aggressive thoughts brewing in his mind.
"Mr. Ma, you mean...?" Lu Zhaoxi asked tentatively.
"Good things are meant to be copied," Ma Liyun said nonchalantly, the corner of his mouth turning up.
’The essence of the internet is free access and sharing. What’s wrong with me copying Chen Yansen’s idea?’
’Everyone copies everyone else, anyway.’
"Just imagine if every Taobao user kept ten thousand yuan in their account. Wealth Treasure would gain over a trillion yuan in float funds."
Before Lu Zhaoxi could reply, Ma Liyun impatiently stood up and said, waving his arms.
When users made purchases or transfers with Wealth Treasure, the time lag in the settlement cycle caused a certain amount of funds to accumulate in the provision account.
The interest income from these funds belonged to Wealth Treasure. Last year, the interest from provision funds accounted for about 9.1% of Wealth Treasure’s total revenue.
This was the main reason Ma Liyun was so eager to increase Wealth Treasure’s account value!
As the saying goes, the world bustles, all for the sake of profit. Lao Ma wouldn’t risk offending Chen Yansen and aggressively copy Orange Pay’s strategic layout if there was no money to be made.
At this time, the Bank Association had not yet introduced a centralized deposit management system for the customer provision funds of third-party payment institutions.
It wasn’t just Wealth Treasure that profited from float funds; Orange Pay and Jingdong Pay did the same.
Seeing this, Lu Zhaoxi immediately understood Ma Liyun’s true intentions and quickly declared, "I’ll assemble a project team as soon as possible and make our version of Yu’e Bao the top priority for Q4 development."
"Change the name. If we also call it Yu’e Bao, the copying will be too obvious."
Ma Liyun turned around, returned to his seat, and spoke after a slight cough.
After all, Ali was the king of e-commerce, and Wealth Treasure was the leader among domestic electronic payment apps. To copy so blatantly and shamelessly would be a bit too much.
Ma Liyun still wanted to save some face!
"How about Huoqianbao?" A name popped into Lu Zhaoxi’s head in a flash of inspiration.
"Huoqianbao? It’s missing something," Ma Liyun said, shaking his head.
He mulled it over a few times. He just felt that Huoqianbao didn’t roll off the tongue as smoothly as Yu’e Bao.
For a product to reach a wider audience, its name had to be catchy, simple, and easy to understand.
Take Taobao, Pinbei, and Jingdong, for example. They were all short, two-syllable names that users could remember instantly.
"What about Sulitong? It emphasizes the product’s instant deposit and withdrawal feature while also giving users the impression of quick profits."
Lu Zhaoxi continued.
"I thought of one. Let’s call it Lingqianbao," Ma Liyun said, not responding directly but voicing his own idea.
"That name sounds a bit too much like we’re copying. How about Lingqiantong instead? The ’tong’ implies flow and connection, representing how users’ funds can move quickly within Wealth Treasure."
Lu Zhaoxi thought for a moment, making a slight adjustment to Ma Liyun’s idea.
"Not bad! Lingqiantong is catchier than Lingqianbao. Let’s tentatively go with that name. We can always change it before the product launches."
Ma Liyun nodded slightly, giving his initial approval for the name ’Lingqiantong’.
"Then I’ll start the preparations immediately," Lu Zhaoxi said, standing up.
"Make it an S-level priority project. Concentrate all our manpower and resources. Aim to launch by the end of the year... no, by Q1 of next year."
Ma Liyun had originally wanted to shorten the development cycle to two months. However, Q4 was the peak season for e-commerce, and the revenue from those three months often accounted for 40% of the total annual income. Worried that the Lingqiantong project would affect the Double 11 and Double 12 sales events, he changed his mind at the last minute, extending the project timeline to five months.
"Understood," Lu Zhaoxi replied instantly.
As for whether the ’T+0’ fund redemption method was compliant with regulations, that was completely outside their consideration.
If even Chen Yansen dared to bypass the financial regulatory authorities and use a slick maneuver with advance funds to achieve instant ’T+0’ redemptions, why would Wealth Treasure shy away?
One had to remember that Ma Liyun had founded Wealth Treasure nine years ago. He was an old hand, unafraid of testing the waters and pushing boundaries.
It wasn’t exactly compliant, but it wasn’t illegal either!
’Just do it first and worry about it later!’
After Ma Liyun made his decision, Wealth Treasure established the Lingqiantong project team that very day, which included liaison departments for fund companies, banking channels, and technical systems.
「Meanwhile.」
At Penguin Headquarters, Ma Wenteng and his team were also discussing the Yu’e Bao product.
Unlike Ali, Penguin’s interest in Yu’e Bao wasn’t as intense as Lao Ma’s.
"I think we should do it. Not only would it increase the account value for TenPay users, but it would also generate extra revenue from the float," a Penguin director suggested.
"If we leverage the account funds of users from QQ Group Buy, Paipai Network, and Yixun Network, it might even spur growth in the group’s e-commerce business."
Another Penguin director nodded in agreement.
In reality, back in 2012, online shoppers viewed TenPay, Wealth Treasure, and Orange Pay as nothing more than payment tools.
They would only top up their balances from their online bank accounts when they were about to make a purchase.
For one, third-party payment apps didn’t have financial attributes and couldn’t generate extra returns, so users had no incentive to keep money in their balances. For another, there was a general lack of trust in these third-party payment apps.
This was a stark contrast to the situation a dozen or so years later!
"Martin, what do you think?" Ma Wenteng, sitting at the head of the table, turned his gaze to Liu Zhiping and asked.
"For TenPay, a product like Yu’e Bao holds three points of strategic significance. First, it marks the transition from a payment tool to a financial platform. Second, it attracts a massive number of wealth management users, boosting engagement. Third, it completes TenPay’s ecosystem, paving the way for future financial products."
Liu Zhiping replied, choosing his words carefully after a moment of thought.
The implication was clear: Penguin should also enter the ’small change wealth management’ industry to secure the group’s long-term development.
Ma Wenteng frowned, considering this seriously for a few minutes before speaking. "Let’s take it a step further. We should combine the WeChat Pay and Yu’e Bao-style businesses, downplay TenPay’s presence, and push the product concept of WeChat Pay as the main brand."
"Yu’e Bao is Orange Pay’s product name. We should come up with a different one."
"How about Shanyingbao?"
"I think Lingdongjin is not bad either!"
In an instant, all the Penguin directors jumped into the discussion.
On October 10th, on the eve of Yu’e Bao’s launch, the two internet giants, Ali and Penguin, independently came up with the idea to ’copy and replicate’ it.
As soon as the clock struck midnight, pop-up ads appeared on Orange Pay’s PC site and mobile app. Activate the Yu’e Bao feature and instantly receive a 5,000 yuan trial fund. Invite a new user and get an additional 5,000 yuan trial fund. You could earn up to 10 million yuan in trial funds, valid for seven days.
Based on the 5.1% seven-day annualized yield shown on the page, the maximum earnings were around 9,800 yuan.
Within half an hour of the promotion’s launch, the number of participants had already surpassed 100,000.
Driven by Pinbei, Kuai Pao, and Fast Taxi, Orange Pay’s cumulative registered users had long since exceeded 100 million, with daily active users surpassing 18 million.
Coupled with a three-day, internet-wide pre-launch campaign, achieving such results was actually within the expectations of Zhang Yinjia and the team.
By 10:00 AM, the number of Yu’e Bao accounts had broken one million. Excluding the trial funds, the actual amount of capital reached 4.63 billion yuan, with an average of 4,630 yuan in each Yu’e Bao account.
This showed that even with Senlian Capital’s backing, the majority of users still did not have a high level of trust in Orange Pay.
However, many people were willing to part with a few thousand yuan to experience Yu’e Bao’s exceptionally high returns.
「At the same time.」
Pinbei launched a promotion offering Yu’e Bao trial funds for every order placed!
Fast Taxi and Kuai Pao also launched corresponding joint promotions!