Ant Group is demanding a larger slice of lucrative commissions from its popular payments platform at the expense of local banks as China’s largest fintech tries to offset losses from a government crackdown on its lending business.
The move will help Ant’s controlling shareholder, Chinese billionaire Jack Ma, to rebuild the group’s valuation after Beijing in November pulled the company’s planned $37bn initial public offering, which would have been the world’s biggest.
Ma has since largely disappeared from public view while Beijing has launched new rules restricting online lending as part of a wider crackdown on fintechs, which China’s President Xi Jinping signalled this month was only just beginning.