China orders Alibaba founder Jack Ma to break up fintech empire

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

China orders Alibaba founder Jack Ma to break up fintech empire

Central bank says Ant Group governance is unsound and tells it to rectify ‘illegal activities’

Rupert Neate
@RupertNeate
Mon 28 Dec 2020 13.50 GMT

China has escalated its campaign to rein in the vast tech empire controlled by Jack Ma, the co-founder of Alibaba and one of the country’s richest people.

Authorities in Beijing, who had on Christmas Eve ordered an investigation into allegations of “monopolistic practices” by Ma’s online retail giant, have now ordered his financial technology company Ant Group to scale back its operations.

Pan Gongsheng, a deputy governor of China’s central bank, said Ant’s corporate governance was “not sound” and ordered it to “return to its origins” as a payment services provider.

Pan, who had summoned Ant representatives to a meeting with regulators in Beijing on Saturday, said Ant must “strictly rectify illegal credit, insurance and wealth management financial activities”. Ant divisions offering those services are the business’s fastest-growing and most profitable operations, analysts said.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/dec/28/china-orders-alibaba-founder-jack-ma-break-up-fintech-ant

[House of Roberts]

1. Cancer capitalism becomes a thorn in the side of all forms of government,

it would appear.