China's financial authorities conduct talks with Ant Group again

The People's Bank of China, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, and the State Administration of Foreign Exchange again carried out joint regulatory talks with Ant Group on Monday.

Pan Gongsheng, deputy head of the PBOC, answered media queries concerning the talks.

After the previous talks with regulators in December last year, Ant Group has set up a special task force to map a rectification plan under the guidance of the financial authorities and to actively carry out the rectification work, according to Pan.

Monday's talks aimed to prompt the group to face the grave problems in its financial business and the seriousness of the rectification work. The group must carry out profound and effective rectification to stay firm in serving the real economy and the people and actively respond to national development strategies, he said.

He said the group's rectification plan aims to correct unfair competition in the group's payment business, giving consumers more payment options.

According to the plan, the group should break the monopoly of information, and guarantee the security of personal and state information, he said.

Ant Group as a whole will apply to become a financial holding company, and all its institutions engaged in financial businesses will be included in the financial holding company and be regulated.

The group should strictly implement the requirements of prudent regulation, improve corporate governance, and rectify non-compliant lending, insurance, wealth management and other financial activities, and curb high leverage and risk contagion.

The group should manage the liquidity risks of major fund products, according to the plan.

For the next step, the country's financial regulators will uphold the principle of fair and strict supervision, promote fair competition, oppose monopolies, and prevent disorderly capital expansion, Pan noted.

Platform enterprises should take serving the real economy and preventing financial risks as the basis of their financial business, and all the financial activities will be put under supervision.

With the rapid development of financial technology and platform economies, new challenges for financial supervision have emerged, and it is a common problem faced by financial regulators across the world.

China's financial regulators are willing to cooperate with international financial organizations and regulatory authorities of other countries in fields including anti-monopoly, data supervision, operation management, and consumer protection, he said.