China imposes hefty fines on Ant Group and Tencent as it looks to normalise supervision
China’s central bank has imposed hefty fines on the country’s tech titans Ant Group and Tencent, among other fintechs, as it looks to transition to a “normalised” supervision of the sector.
PBOC fines Ant Group and Tencent
Ant Group, which operates mobile payment service Alipay, along with its subsidiaries, have received a penalty of 7.123 billion yuan ($984.3 million), while Tencent’s Tenpay has been slapped a fine of 2.99 billion yuan ($413 million).
The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) says the fine on Ant Group reflects the company’s violations of laws of regulations in corporate governance, financial consumer protection, participation in business activities of banking and insurance institutions, payment and settlement business, fulfilment of anti-money laundering obligations, and development of fund sales business in the past years.
Chinese regulators had brought Ant Group’s highly anticipated IPO to a halt back in November 2020, leading to the fintech company setting up a working group to overcome regulatory obstacles and Jack Ma ceding control of the group at the start of 2023.
The PBOC says since November 2020, its financial management department has “supervised and guided” Ant Group, Tencent Group and other platform companies to rectify violations of laws and strengthen supervision.
“At present, most of the outstanding problems in the financial business of platform enterprises have been rectified,” the PBOC says in a statement. “The work focus of the financial management department has shifted from promoting the centralised rectification of the financial business of platform companies to normalised supervision.”
In addition to Ant Group and Tencent, the central bank has also imposed administrative penalties on Postal Savings Bank, Ping An Bank and PICC Property Insurance.
