Stronger by Paying Salaries and I Have 1 Billion Employees

”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Converting users’ account balances into investment funds that could be deposited and withdrawn at any time—this gave users a perfect use case.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.