China ends Ant Group's regulatory revamp with $984 million fine
By Julie Zhu and Jane Xu
HONG KONG (Reuters) — Chinese authorities announced on Friday a 7.12 billion yuan ($984 million) fine for Ant Group, ending a years-long regulatory overhaul of the fintech company and marking a key step to concluding a crackdown on the country's internet sector.
China's central bank, which has been driving the revamp at Ant after the company's $37 billion IPO was scuttled in late 2020, said it would fine Ant 7.1 billion yuan, require it to stop operations of its crowdfunded medical aid service Xianghubao and compensate users.
The penalty amounts to one of the largest ever fines for an internet company in China.
Ant and its subsidiaries had violated laws concerning corporate governance and financial consumer protection, and participated in business activities that were supposed to be conducted by bank and insurance institutions, the People's Bank of China (PBOC) said.
Next, the financial regulators «will focus on improving 'normalized' supervision levels of platform companies' financial businesses, and bring all kinds of financial activities under supervision,» the PBOC said.
Ant said it had completed its rectification work. «We will comply with the terms of the penalty in all earnestness and sincerity and continue to further enhance our compliance governance.» It closed Xianghubao in 2021.
Reuters reported earlier, citing sources, that Chinese authorities intended to unveil its fine on Ant as early as Friday.
Besides Ant, the Chinese authorities also announced they had fined Ping An Bank, insurer PICC Property and Casualty, Postal Savings Bank and Tencent Holdings (OTC:TCEHY) Tenpay, with Tenpay given a penalty of 2.4 billion yuan for committing violations in areas such as customer data
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