Jack Ma’s Ant Group Fined Nearly $1 Billion by Chinese Authorities for ‘Breaking Rules’ – News18

Chinese authorities have fined Ant Group, the fintech giant founded by Jack Ma, about 7.1 billion yuan ($994 million) for breaking rules related to consumer protection and corporate governance.

China Securities Regulatory Commission, the People’s Bank of China and the National Financial Regulatory Administration in a joint statement said the financial technology giant also broke rules relating to “business activities in banking and insurance, payments, anti-money laundering, and funds sales,” according to CNN.

“We will comply with the terms of the penalty in all earnestness and sincerity and continue to further enhance our compliance governance,” Ant Group said in a statement.

The Ant Group is an affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba, which was also founded by Ma.

The fine on Ant Group comes nearly three years after regulators blocked the company’s proposal for a record-breaking public offering. In 2020, Chinese regulators had stopped Ant’s massive IPO in November days before it was scheduled to raise an estimated $34 billion in Hong Kong and Shanghai.

However, on Friday, Alibaba shares were up 3.44 percent in Hong Kong after reports that Ant would be fined, with analysts saying investors saw the punishment as evidence the tech crackdown was drawing to a close.

Alibaba has been repeatedly hit by Chinese government crackdowns as the ruling Communist Party sees the group becoming too powerful enterprise.

In 2021, it was fined $2.5 billion, a record for China, for behaving like a monopoly.

In January, Ant Group said Jack Ma no longer held controlling rights in the company — a move analysts speculated might have helped pull Ant and Alibaba out of the regulatory doghouse.

Ant, founded in 2014, is one of the biggest online financial tech companies in the world. The group operates Alipay, the world’s largest digital payments platform, which boasts hundreds of millions of monthly users in China and beyond.

In recent years, Ant has expanded into offering loans, credit, investments and insurance to hundreds of millions of consumers and small businesses.