Ant Group starts to differentiate consumer loan business Jiebei from bank loans

A gentleman walks earlier an Ant Team logo at the Earth Synthetic Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, China, July 8, 2021. REUTERS/Yilei Sunshine

BEIJING, Nov 8 (Reuters) – China’s Ant Team mentioned on Monday that it is creating efforts to “differentiate” aspect of its small-time period buyer bank loan organization Jiebei, as it pursues a Beijing-led restructuring aimed at reining in some of its freewheeling firms.

Ant, the financial affiliate of e-commerce giant Alibaba Group (9988.HK), noticed its $37 billion IPO derailed by regulators previous 12 months and has considering that been operating to transform by itself into a economical holding company. read through more

Neighborhood media on the weekend described changes at Jiebei immediately after Chinese regulators in April questioned Ant to perform a sweeping small business overhaul, which contains folding its credit solutions Jiebei and Huabei, into a new client finance agency.

They also criticised Huabei and Jiebei for inappropriate one-way links amongst payment companies and fiscal products and solutions, declaring that these may have in excess of promoted financial loan expert services to end users.

The Shanghai Securities News described on Sunday, citing borrowers, that the Jiebei platform experienced produced alterations to present which loans ended up becoming provided by Chongqing Ant Customer Finance Co, and which had been delivered by financial institutions.

“Jiebei is slowly working on manufacturer differentiation,” an Ant Team spokesperson said, including that buyer credit score expert services offered independently by banking companies or other economic establishments will be offered on a “credit mortgage” page.

Ant did not elaborate on how much of its business would be affected by the brand name differentiation.

Ant has been requested by regulators to total the branding restructuring of Huabei and Jiebei inside of 6 months following its purchaser finance organization commences to work, neighborhood media the 21st Century Small business Herald reported earlier.

Ant’s client finance device won approval to start running in Chongqing city in June. study more

Huabei and Jiebei were utilized by about 500 million folks in the 12 months to June 30, 2020, Ant explained in its IPO prospectus.

In September, Ant’s digital credit rating card support Huabei begun to send its purchaser credit rating facts to a databases operate by China’s central financial institution, a key move for each the corporation and regulators as Beijing tightens its grip more than the economical technological know-how sector. examine a lot more

Reporting by Cheng Leng and Brenda Goh editing by Richard Pullin

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