Why China Changed the Rules on Jack Ma’s Ant Group

Years of loose regulatory oversight in China helped billionaire Jack Ma’s Ant Group become the world’s most-valuable financial giant, with businesses spanning payments, banking, wealth management and insurance. But a turnabout in rhetoric from Chinese authorities -- and new rules they slapped suddenly on its lucrative consumer-loan business -- signal the once-fertile landscape for the fintech industry has changed. The first casualty was Ant’s $35 billion mega-listing on the eve of its debut in Shanghai and Hong Kong.

They’re actually draft rules to regulate the nation’s more than 200 online microlenders, which refers to companies that offer relatively small, unsecured loans via the internet, and are banned from accepting deposits. The proposals include: