China’s financial regulators have fined Ant Group, a fintech firm founded by billionaire Jack Ma, about 7.1 billion yuan ($994 million) for violating consumer protection and corporate governance rules.
The fines also affected business activities in banking and insurance, payments, anti-money laundering, and funds sales. Ant Group, an affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba, was fined 18.2 billion yuan ($2.5 billion) in April 2021 for being a monopoly.
The Chinese government’s crackdown aimed to curb private enterprise, which had become too powerful in the eyes of the ruling Communist Party. In April 2021, Alibaba was fined 18.2 billion yuan ($2.5 billion) for behaving like a monopoly.
Ma ceded control of Ant Group in January 2021, and since then, Alibaba has announced plans to split its business into six separate units, each overseen by its own CEO and board of directors.
Alibaba aims to build more nimble companies that create more value for investors. Additionally, China’s financial regulators have also announced a fine of nearly 3 billion yuan ($415 million) for Tenpay, Tencent’s online payment platform.
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