Chinese regulators summoned Ant Group head Jack Ma (founder of China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba) and his senior executives to a meeting, ahead of the company’s initial public offering of USD 39.7 billion shares, which is believed to be the world’s biggest.
China’s state-run Global Times Daily reported that these talks were primarily conducted to discuss regulations, while further details are still awaited. “Management Group at Ant group said the FinTech giant will continue to innovate, welcome supervision and serve the real economy after it was summoned by the top financial regulatory authority on Monday” as reported by Global Times Daily.
Jack Ma, China’s esteemed billionaire and founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba, retired last year as the Company’s Chairman. Ant Group operates Alipay, the world’s most valuable and gargantuan financial technology (FinTech) company and one of the two dominant Chinese digital wallets, the other being Tencent’s WeChat Pay. Alibaba owns a third of Ant Group and Alipay was conceived in 2011. The company was later rebranded as Ant, as it further secured base in lending and other financial sectors.
The company has come under surveillance and tighter regulation following its massive upward growth in the financial sector, and widening of the range of financial technology services it offers. New regulations include caps on the use of asset-backed securities to fund consumer loans, new capital and licensing requirements and caps on lending rates.
