Photographer: Qilai Shen / Bloomberg
Photographer: Qilai Shen / Bloomberg
Chinese regulators imposed a series of requirements on it Ant Group Co., announces that the company will return to its origins as a payment service provider and reform loan, insurance and wealth management services, after they called the fintech behemoth on Saturday.
Ant needs to be aware of how serious and critical it is to restructure its businesses, and come up with a plan and schedule as soon as possible, the People’s Bank of China said in a statement Sunday. The Hangzhou-based company also needs to set up a financial holding company to ensure capital adequacy and compliance in related transactions, while ensuring the privacy of personal data in its credit scoring services, he said.
Authorities also hailed Ant for what they described as poor corporate governance, respecting regulators’ compliance requirements, and engaging in regulatory negotiations. The PBOC said Ant used his leadership to ban competitors, hurting consumer interests.
China on Thursday launched an investigation into Alopaba Group Holding Ltd’s alleged monopolistic practices. and called Ant linked to a high-level meeting on financial rules, reducing scrutiny across the two pillars of internet billionaire Jack Ma. The emphasis on Ma is at the heart of a broader effort to block an increasingly influential internet domain.
Once identified as drivers of economic wealth and symbols of the country’s technological potential, the emperors who built Ma, The chairman of Tencent Holdings Ltd., “Pony” Ma Huateng, and other tycoons are now under scrutiny after gathering hundreds of millions of customers and influencing almost every aspect of Chinese daily life.
Ma’s own empire is in crisis mode. In early December, with Ant under regulatory scrutiny, the government advised the closest of meteoric rise in China Inc. living in the country, someone familiar with the case has said. Alibaba itself has lost more than $ 100 billion worth of market value since November, when regulators torpedoed what would have been a $ 35 billion top Ant debate.
Its chief officers are part of an action group that interacts almost daily with watchdogs. At the same time, regulators, including China’s Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, are measuring what businesses Ant should provide to contain the risks it poses to the economy. , officials with knowledge of the case have said. They did not decide whether to carve out their different lines of work, share their online and offline services, or follow a different path altogether.
Read more: Jack Ma goes quietly after the amazing show at Ant Group
– Supported by John Liu, Jessica Sui, and Jun Luo
(Updates with more information from the second paragraph.)