LIVE: Covid-19 Pushes Rise of Livestreaming Investment Influencers in China | December 16

(Dec. 16) With 1.3 billion mobile internet users, more than any country in the world, China’s tech platforms are disrupting the Chinese finance sector. Welcome to the cutting-edge and cutthroat world of China’s 18.3 trillion yuan ($2.8 trillion) mutual funds industry, where traditional fund distribution networks like banks are overwhelmed by colorful and noisy livestreamers and globally renowned names such as BlackRock Inc. and Vanguard Group Inc. hold little clout among a young, tech-savvy investor class. The shift has gathered steam as Covid-19 lockdowns confine people to their couches and foster an online shopping boom.

“Every asset manager is jumping on the bandwagon,” says Ken Kang, the Shenzhen-based chief executive officer of Invesco Great Wall. “Livestreaming is really a new phenomenon this year but has taken off fast.”

Last year, Invesco Great Wall relied mostly on text and voiced-based social media to promote products, but this year it’s gone all-in on livestreaming, with fund managers hosting more than 90 sessions. During Deng’s appearance, graphics show his returns, industry experience, and a rough breakdown of the fund’s holdings to entice viewers to become investors.

For foreign companies trying to break into, or win, a bigger slice of the market as China opens its financial sector, it can be an alien and at times bizarre environment. Funds backed by international companies raised $470 billion from mostly Chinese retail investors in the first eight months of the year, less than half the $967 billion raked in by more than 100 local rivals, according to data compiled by Morningstar Inc. and Bloomberg. Of the 10 biggest funds raised, only two were backed by foreign companies.

The shift comes as a generation of tech-savvy digital people reach an age where they have enough money to invest and are looking for ways to increase their wealth. Online platforms are playing a rapidly increasing role, most notably in the past five years after popular sites obtained fund-sales licenses to sell mutual funds. East Money Information Co.’s 1234567.com.cn, one of the largest third-party distribution platforms, sold 659 billion yuan of funds last year, beating traditional distribution giants such as Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd.

“In the past, fund management companies would be quite happy if a new fund collected 2 billion to 3 billion yuan in its initial launch,” says Lu Haiyang, CEO of Hongtai Wealth, the distribution unit of investment group Hongtai Aplus. “Now a well-known manager can easily raise more than 10 billion yuan if online distribution channels are used.”

Led by Ant Group Co. and Tencent Holdings Ltd., a raft of new but pervasive players have uprooted sectors from loans to insurance to asset management. Ant has sold mutual funds to more than 500 million people and is distributing products for more than 20 asset managers, including Invesco’s local venture. The fintech giant offers livestreaming services for asset managers on its Alipay app, which has 1 billion users.

The market is ultracompetitive. Other platforms including those operated by Nasdaq-listed Bilibili Inc. and TikTok’s owner, ByteDance Ltd., are racing to beef up their finance channels to attract viewers keen on learning how to invest. That’s prompted a race for talent.

Among local finance influencers, few command as loyal a following as Zheng Zhiyong. A 10-year fund veteran, he operates personal accounts on multiple platforms under the nickname “Wangjing Bogle,” an homage to Vanguard founder and index fund legend John Bogle. Based in Bejing’s Wangjing tech hub, Zheng has almost 500,000 followers on Alipay and more than 200,000 on China’s Xueqiu, an investment-focused, Reddit-type site, and 1234567.com.cn.

Almost 3,000 members pay him 1,000 yuan ($153) a year for access to his daily investment picks. Zheng chooses lower-fee funds, like certain exchange-traded funds, for his portfolio and buys on internet platforms, which often offer low subscription fees compared with bank channels. He says this gives his followers a cost advantage in the long term over banks and other distributors who tend to pick higher-fee products to earn higher commissions.

---

Subscribe to our YouTube channel

Bloomberg Quicktake brings you live global news and original shows spanning business, technology, politics and culture. Make sense of the stories changing your business and your world.

To watch complete coverage on Bloomberg Quicktake 24/7, visit  or watch on Apple TV, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, Fire TV and Android TV on the Bloomberg app.

Connect with us on…

Breaking News on YouTube