Chinese fintech giant Ant Group must “cut off” the “improper connections” between its payment platform and its financial products, the country’s regulators said, in the first public announcement of Ant’s “rectification programme” since its record-breaking public offering was halted.

The impact could be to strip Ant down into returning to its roots as a mobile payment platform, severely weakening its credit businesses, say analysts and one official. Only 36 per cent of Ant’s revenues at present come from its payment services, with the remainder coming from digital finance.

The announcement by the People’s Bank of China on Monday clarifies some of the uncertainty hanging over Ant group since November last year when Beijing halted Ant’s public offering in Shanghai, days before it was set to raise a record $37bn.