{"id":23386,"date":"2020-12-28T08:01:04","date_gmt":"2020-12-28T08:01:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/?p=23386"},"modified":"2020-12-28T08:01:04","modified_gmt":"2020-12-28T08:01:04","slug":"china-orders-ant-group-to-revamp-its-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/2020\/12\/28\/china-orders-ant-group-to-revamp-its-business\/","title":{"rendered":"China orders Ant Group to revamp its business"},"content":{"rendered":"

It escalates a pressure campaign that has been building since the government abruptly halted the company\u2019s plans for a record-breaking share listing last month<\/strong><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n

Chinese regulators Sunday ordered the financial-technology giant Ant Group to fix what they described as a litany of business failings, escalating a pressure campaign that has been building since the government abruptly halted the company\u2019s plans for a record-breaking share listing last month.<\/p>\n

The Chinese government has begun taking a harder line toward big internet companies, which have come to wield vast influence over segments of the economy much like Facebook, Google and other tech giants have done elsewhere. China\u2019s market regulator recently opened an anti-monopoly investigation into Ant\u2019s sister company, the e-commerce behemoth Alibaba. Alibaba is the other pillar of the business empire built by Jack Ma, China\u2019s richest man and best-known tycoon.<\/p>\n

Ant\u2019s Alipay platform began as a payment service for Alibaba\u2019s online shopping sites, but it has since grown to help its 730 million monthly users take out small loans, invest their savings and buy insurance. Alipay\u2019s growth had put Ant on course to hold the world\u2019s largest initial public offering. It also prompted authorities to look at whether Ant was benefiting improperly from facing less oversight than traditional financial institutions.<\/p>\n

Officials from four financial watchdogs, including the central bank, met with Ant on Saturday, the agencies said. On Sunday, a deputy governor at the central bank, Pan Gongsheng, described what had been discussed in the form of a written question-and-answer session that made clear the regulators\u2019 intense displeasure with the company.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Pan listed what he said were Ant\u2019s main problems. Its corporate governance was \u201cnot sound,\u201d he said. It was \u201cindifferent\u201d to the law, \u201clooked down\u201d upon compliance requirements and engaged in \u201cregulatory arbitrage.\u201d It took advantage of its dominance, Pan said, to exclude rivals. And it harmed consumers\u2019 interests.<\/p>\n

The regulators have ordered Ant to \u201creturn to its payment origins,\u201d Pan said, and to \u201cstrictly rectify illegal credit, insurance and wealth management financial activities.\u201d Such demands could portend that the agencies will ask Ant to spin off those business lines, which have been increasingly important to its revenue.<\/p>\n

Pan also said the regulators had ordered Ant to reorganize itself to ensure that it met capital requirements. Keeping more money on its books to back its lending activities could crimp Ant\u2019s bottom line.<\/p>\n

Regulators in China have played give-and-take with Ant for years. When the company created a money-market fund within Alipay that paid higher rates than bank deposits, the government forced the fund to shed risk and lower returns. After Ant began managing huge amounts of money in Alipay virtual wallets, the central bank made it park those funds in special accounts where they would earn minimal interest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It escalates a pressure campaign that has been building since the government abruptly halted the company’s plans for a record-breaking share listing last month   Chinese regulators Sunday ordered the financial-technology giant Ant Group to fix what they described as a litany of business failings, escalating a pressure campaign that has been building since the government abruptly halted the company’s plans for a record-breaking share listing last month. The Chinese government has begun taking a harder line toward big internet companies, which have come to wield vast influence over segments<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":23387,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[30,12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23386"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23386"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23388,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23386\/revisions\/23388"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}