China Tells Ant to Return to Its Payment Roots, Places Curbs
- Authorities require Ant to overhaul business, set up timetable
- Ant was blasted over governance, disdain toward compliance
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Chinese regulators ordered Jack Ma’s online financial titan Ant Group Co. to return to its roots as a provider of payments services, threatening to throttle growth in its most lucrative businesses of consumer loans and wealth management.
The central bank summoned Ant executives over the weekend and told them to “rectify” the company’s lending, insurance and wealth management services, the People’s Bank of China said in a statement Sunday. While it stopped short of directly asking for a breakup of the company, the central bank stressed that Ant needed to “understand the necessity of overhauling its business” and come up with a timetable as soon as possible.