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Ant Group’s IPO could be revived after ‘problem solved’, hints China’s central bank governor

  • Yi Gang said Ant Group situation is a ‘complicated issue’, noted its payments business continues as normal
  • PBOC governor said there needs to be more international cooperation on regulating fintech, particularly on consumer data

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Ant Group’s US$34.5 billion initial public offering was scrapped in November over concerns about systemic risk and consumer complaints. Photo: Bloomberg
Chad BrayandAlison Tudor-Ackroyd
China’s central bank governor Yi Gang raised the possibility on Tuesday that Ant Group, controlled by Chinese billionaire Jack Ma, could be allowed to pursue an initial public offering once it fully complies with the country’s law and has addressed customer complaints.

Regulators abruptly shut down Ant Group’s US$34.5 billion dual listing in Shanghai and Hong Kong in November over concerns that the world’s largest financial technology company posed a systemic risk and was violating consumers’ privacy. Soon after, Beijing announced a raft of new fintech regulations and an antitrust inquiry into the nation’s technology sector.

The Hangzhou-based group, which operates the ubiquitous Alipay mobile payments platform, and its rivals, such as JD.com’s fintech unit, have begun restructuring their businesses to comply with the new rules.

Speaking during the World Economic Forum’s Davos virtual conference, Yi, the governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), said regulating the Ant Group situation was “a complicated issue”, but stressed that the pulled IPO and restructuring had not disrupted payment services to the public.

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“This is a process. Once the problem [is] solved it will go back to the track to continue consideration according to law,” Yi said in response to a question about approving Ant Group’s IPO sometime in the future. “You just follow the standard of legal structure, you will have the result.”
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