BEIJING, April 23 (Xinhua) -- China's largest money market fund Yu'ebao had its slowest Q1 asset growth in the first quarter of this year.

The online money market fund, managed by Tianhong Asset Management Co., Ltd, a subsidiary of Alibaba's Ant Financial Services Group, saw its assets grow 6.9 percent in the first three months of 2018, the slowest Q1 expansion since its establishment in 2013.

Yu'ebao had about 1.689 trillion yuan (about 268.2 billion U.S. dollars) under management by the end of March.

The money market fund has introduced a string of purchase limits since the end of 2017 to guard against financial risks, which might be a major drag on its assets growth pace.

Yu'ebao had 474 million users by the end of 2017, with more than 99 percent of them individual investors holding an average of 3,329.57 yuan in each account.