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China's Baidu Goes In Search Of Bank Licence

(c) Sky News 2015

China's biggest search engine has announced plans to open an online bank.

Baidu (Xetra: A0F5DE - news) , which is dubbed China's Google, said its venture with Citic Bank would be the first tie-up of its kind and it was due to seek regulatory approval.

It (Other OTC: ITGL - news) said in a filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that the proposed Baixin Bank - with Citic as the majority stakeholder - would have an initial two billion yuan (£205m) in registered capital.

The size of Baixin's proposed investment was not disclosed.

It is not the first internet company to diversify into financial services in China as the country's economy aims to shift more towards domestic consumption - consumer spending.

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E-commerce giant Alibaba and Tencent (HKSE: 0700-OL.HK - news) , operator of the popular messaging app WeChat, already have online banking operations - with Alibaba opening Mybank in June.

Tencent's WeBank began life in January.

The Chinese authorities have been keen to allow new players and grow access to loans for consumers and small businesses, admitting that large - mostly state-run companies - enjoyed the bulk of the available funds ahead of the country's economic slowdown.