MYbank the Alibaba supported Internet bank has been given the green light to commence business by the Chinese authorities. At present the Chinese banking sector is dominated by the state owned banks with China Minsheng Bank being the only privately held bank.
The Agricultural Bank of China, China Construction Bank, The Bank Of China and ICBC are the so called big four state-owned banks.
MYbank intends to focus on providing financial services for small and micro business, as well as online consumers through the Internet platform. Interestingly physical branches will not be opened which in turn could see the traditional branch model come under pressure.
MYbank aims to target financial products for deposits below 200,000 Yuan and loans of less than 5 million Yuan.
According to the approval document by Zhejiang Banking Regulatory Commission. MYbank, mainly funded by Zhejiang Ant Small and Micro Financial Services a company owned by Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma and his colleagues, has a registered capital of 4 billion Yuan (655 million U.S. dollars),
With Wednesday's approval in place it means China's first batch of five private banks announced last year, including the Tencent-backed Webank and Wenzhou Minshang Bank Co., Ltd., have all been approved.
