BEIJING http://www.stlouisbluesteamstore.com/ad … kin-jersey , April 3 (Xinhuanet) -- Chinese banks' resilience to the growing popularity of Internet finance has been "so far, so good" and sector change will come as the industry catches the trend, analysts in Hong Kong said.

By the end of March, at least 11 banks had posted annual results. They show continued net-profit growth, 13.9 percent on average in 2013, three percentage points lower than the year before. That's in the limelight of Internet finance.

"Because of rising funding costs http://www.stlouisbluesteamstore.com/ad … yko-jersey , the banking sector saw slower profit growth this year. Margins are narrowing," said Grace Wu, Hong Kong-based analyst of Daiwa Securities Group Inc. "The pressure isn't severe. Chinese banks still enjoy a loan price advantage. We maintain a stable outlook on sector margins this year."

Last June, Yu'ebao, a money market fund distributed online by Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, raised the curtain on Internet finance's development. It featured flexible redemption and offered above-deposit returns. Investors arrived amid an inter-bank liquidity squeeze in the second half of 2013.

Other Internet companies followed - including Tencent Inc http://www.stlouisbluesteamstore.com/ad … urn-jersey , Baidu Inc and Sina Corp - with similar products, drawing capital away from bank accounts and causing banks' funding costs to rise. By the end of February, China's money market fund had grown to 1.4 trillion yuan ($226.81 billion), 2.5 times bigger than it was in last May.

"People claim Internet finance is a huge challenge to commercial banks," Victor Wang, China banking analyst at Credit Suisse AG http://www.stlouisbluesteamstore.com/ad … ger-jersey , told a forum in Hong Kong. "But in the short term, its impact will be rather limited."

"Number-wise, the total AUM (asset under management) of money market bonds is around 1 trillion yuan, which is less than 1 percent compared with Chinese banks' deposit base. Online financing activities, including peer-to-peer lending, are at the infant stage. They are small ticket relative to banks' lending size http://www.stlouisbluesteamstore.com/ad … ton-jersey ," he said.

Wang pointed out that a tightening regulatory environment means it's "unlikely" online financial activities will take a bigger market slice from banks.

"The dramatic development of Internet finance is challenging the regulatory framework," he said, adding Yu'ebao now manages 500 billion yuan of 80 million users, or 10 percent of China's economic population. "When a financial product is that big, any responsible regulator has to make sure it is safe and the potential risk of such products can be well-contained."

Although Internet finance is considered too young to challenge banks now, it's an alert that will spur interbank competition http://www.stlouisbluesteamstore.com/ad … son-jersey , analysts said.

"We are going to see meaningful change in the medium to long term," Credit Suisse's Wang said. "Banks have witnessed the trend and realize that Internet finance is a feasible model and a sharp weapon to gain market share. When banks start to compete with each other by leveraging the new technology, the impact created will be much greater than the challenges from external competitors."

He added that banks have lagged behind Internet companies in terms of user experience, accessibility and data bases.

"Ten years from now, the value of physical branches will substantially decline because, by then http://www.stlouisbluesteamstore.com/ad … ter-jersey , 99 percent of transactions will be finished online," Wang said. "Banks need to rethink their business model and catch up substantially. This is a great opportunity for the well-run ones to stand out."

(Source: China Daily)

The Philippines and the United States launched annual military exercises on Monday but the longtime allies scaled them down in line with President Rodrigo Duterte's pivot to China and Russia.

Duterte in his 10 months in office has sought to weaken ties with the US - the Philippines' mutual defense treaty partner and former colonial ruler - saying its role as a global superpower is diminishing.

The 12-day "Balikatan" war games that began on Monday will involve fewer than half the number of soldiers than in 2015 during the term of Duterte's pro-American predecessor Benigno Aquino.

There will also be no focus on strengthening the Philippines' maritime defense capabilities. In previous years this had been widely seen as a show of strength against Beijing over competing claims in the South China Sea.

Duterte has reversed Aquino's policy of challenging China forcefully over the maritime territorial row, choosing instead to pursue closer economic, political and military relations with Beijing.

Officials from both sides spoke in glowing terms at the opening ceremony for Balikatan (meaning "Shoulder-to-shoulder") about the upcoming exercise and their nations' military relations.

But the American co-director for Balikatan, Lieutenant-General Lawrence Nicholson, said the US hoped the exercises would expand again.

"If you look back on 33 years of Balikatan http://www.stlouisbluesteamstore.com/ad … ull-jersey , they are all different. There are any number of ways it can change. It can be bigger, it can be smaller. We hope it gets bigger," Nicholson told reporters at Philippine military headquarters.

While on a trip to Beijing last year, Duterte, a self-described socialist, announced that he had moved into the "ideological flow" of China's communist rulers.

He said in the lead-up to that trip that military exercises with the United States were a "humiliation" for the Philippines http://www.stlouisbluesteamstore.com/ad … enn-jersey , and threatened to sever defense ties completely.

Much of Duterte's criticism appeared to have been triggered by American criticism of his drug war, which has claimed thousands of lives and been condemned by rights groups as a possible crime against humanity.

Duterte responded to criticism from then-US president Barack Obama by repeatedly using personal slurs against him.

RIO DE JANEIRO, April 29 (Xinhua) -- The photos of Chinese Cuju, martial arts, and chess aroused a Chinese culture fever in Brazil's first Portuguese-Chinese bilingual high scho.