Advertisement
China’s fintech platforms face increased scrutiny amid broader regulatory efforts to rein in financial risks
- Fresh comments by People’s Bank of China are the latest example of how Beijing’s increasing focus on financial security is reshaping world’s second-largest economy
- Steps will be taken to enhance monitoring of financial activities of online platforms
Reading Time:2 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
China’s central bank says it will prioritise financial stability this year, vowing to strengthen its regulatory muscle and to put all financial activities under government supervision, in an effort to eliminate risks.
Advertisement
In particular, the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) said it will firmly implement the top leadership’s plans to strengthen antitrust enforcement and prevent the “disorderly expansion of capital”, which generally refers to the regulation of China’s big technology companies.
“Measures will be taken to enhance prudential supervision over the financial activities of online platforms,” the PBOC said in a statement published on its website on Wednesday.
In November, financial regulators finished closing all of the more than 10,000 peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms that had sprung up nationwide in the past 14 years and attracted millions of private investors, leading to billions of yuan worth of savings being lost.
And late last month, the central bank summoned Ant Group, whose dual listings in Shanghai and Hong Kong had already been suspended two months earlier, and ordered it to immediately rectify financial regulatory violations, including those in its credit, insurance and wealth-management-product businesses, and to ensure the protection of personal information during its credit ratings of clients.
Ant Group is a sister company of Alibaba Group, which owns the South China Morning Post.
Advertisement
Advertisement