Chinese regulators ordered Jack Ma ’s online financial titan Ant Group Co . to return to its roots as a provider of payments services, threatening to throttle growth in its most lucrative businesses of consumer loans and wealth management. The central bank summoned Ant executives over the weekend and told them to “rectify" the company’s lending, insurance and wealth management services, the People’s Bank of China said in a statement Sunday. Before regulators intervened, Ant was poised for a public listing that would have valued it at more than $300 billion. The central bank said Ant used its dominance to exclude rivals, hurting the interests of its hundreds of millions of consumers.

Source: Mint December 27, 2020 08:15 UTC