Banks told to tighten oversight of bill business

    CHINA has told banks to step up checks on their bill financing businesses to curb risks, after the sector was hit by several cases of bill fraud costing many millions of dollars.

    Chinese officials have warned against systemic risks as banks struggle to cope with rising bad loans as the economy slows. Some banks have suffered heavy losses due to lax internal controls and other irregularities in bill financing, the People’s Bank of China said in a document jointly issued with the China Banking Regulatory Commission.

    CITIC-linked asset manager faces punishment

    CHINA’S funds regulator said it would discipline a CITIC-linked asset manager for operating a prohibited fund pooling investment scheme.

    The Asset Management Association of China (AMAC), the self-regulatory body that oversees private funds, said illegal fund pools could expose investors to major losses from Ponzi-like schemes. The AMAC said that it would suspend CITIC-CP Asset Management’s permission to engage in new fund business for six months and ordered CITIC-CP to clean up its asset management.

    Evergreen says it may miss bond payment

    EVERGREEN Holding Group, an unlisted company that specializes in building boats, issued a warning Friday that it may have trouble making coupon and interest payments on a bond maturing May 15.

    The company said in a statement on the website of the China interbank market operator that it was unsure if it would be able to make payment in regard to a 0.4 billion yuan (US$61.6 million) short-term commercial debt due May 15.

    Alibaba’s quarterly revenue leaps 39%

    ALIBABA Group Holding Ltd., China’s biggest e-commerce company, said Friday that its revenue surged 39 percent year on year in the first three months of 2016, its fastest growth in the last four quarters.

    Revenue hit 24.18 billion yuan (US$3.75 billion) for the three months to March, it said in its quarterly results announcement, defying both China’s economic slowdown and increasing competition in the world’s biggest e-commerce market. Net income attributable to shareholders rose 85 percent year on year in the quarter to US$832 million. For the full financial year that ended in March, net income rocketed 196 percent to US$11.08 billion.