In 2020, Ant planned to conduct an IPO that could be the largest in history. However, the PRC regulator canceled the placement, and the company began a business restructuring. Paying the fine will help Ant return to the IPO plan
Photo: Aly Song / Archyde.com
Fintech company Ant Group, a subsidiary of China’s Alibaba, could be fined more than $1 billion reported Archyde.com with reference to informed sources. The fine is likely to be imposed for Ant’s alleged infractions related to “disorderly capital expansion” and related financial risks that its business has caused, they said. China’s regulator may announce the fine in the second quarter of next year, the source said.
The fine will pave the way for the end of the fintech company’s restructuring process, the agency writes. A Chinese fintech company’s $37 billion IPO was canceled in 2020. After that, she began restructuring the business.
The payment of the fine could help Ant Group obtain a long-awaited financial holding license and eventually return to its plan to go public, the publication reported. The financial holding license will impose on the company the same restrictions and capital requirements that apply to traditional Chinese banks.
The Ant Group fine will be the largest regulatory fine imposed on a Chinese internet company since a Chinese regulator fined one of the world’s largest taxi services, DiDi Global, $1.2 billion in July.
Alibaba, the parent company of Ant, last year received record fine in the amount of 18 billion yuan ($2.51 billion) for violating antitrust laws.
Ant Group owns Alipay payment service. It is the largest digital payment platform in China. More than 1 billion people use it worldwide. In addition, fintech provides online banking, insurance, lending and asset management services.
Chinese authorities canceled the IPO of Ant Group, which was scheduled for November 2020 on the Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges. Regulators suspended the offering because the company may not have met listing or disclosure requirements. The company’s public debut could have been the largest initial public offering in history.
