NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Monday, May 11, 2015

Like Baidu and Alibaba, Xiaomi is eyeing China’s finance industry and seeing dollar signs. Today the company is officially launching a money-market fund called Huoqibao inside a new standalone app called “Xiaomi Finance.”

Like the Alibaba-affiliated Yu’ebao, Xiaomi’s Huoqibao lets consumers save excess cash and earn interest from it. After registering for a Xiaomi Finance account with one’s national ID, users can bind a bank card to the app can store as little as RMB 1 (about US$0.15). The fund is managed by China’s E Fund Management and currently offers an annual return rate of 4.26 percent.

This marks Xiaomi’s first foray into serious finance, but it has dabbled in money in the past. Huoqibao was once available in beta for select users of Xiaomi Wallet, another standalone app that was primarily used to manage virtual currency known as Mi coins. Users from inside China could purchase Mi coins through bound bank cards or Alipay accounts, and redeem them for customized launcher themes, or media like e-books.

Below are some screenshots we’ve carefully lifted from our friends at Chinese tech blogHuxiu. The left and middle pictures are shots of the Xiaomi Finance app, while the right shot is a picture of Huoqibao from Xiaomi Wallet. Huxiu states that Huoqibao does not appear to support Alipay at present.