ByteDance downsizes finance-related business amid Beijing’s curbs on ‘irrational’ capital expansion

TikTok owner ByteDance, which has been diversifying its business beyond its widely popular short video-sharing app, has decided to downsize its financial services operations amid Beijing’s continued campaign to “prevent the irrational expansion of capital”.

“The company is scaling back its finance-related business and plans to sell the securities brokerage operation,” a ByteDance representative said in a statement on Thursday. The Beijing-based tech unicorn did not name the business unit it intends to divest and provided no data about its financial services business.

ByteDance, which also runs news aggregator Jinri Toutiao and Chinese short video app Douyin, made its foray into financial services with the launch of its “Dolphin Stock” app in 2017. This app “intelligently tracks the market, provides fast information and performance analysis”, according to its website.

In 2018, ByteDance entered the insurance business when it acquired Huaxia Insurance Brokers. Last year, the company won an online microlending license in Shenzhen and obtained an online payment licence with its acquisition of Chinese third-party payment service UIPay.

Earlier last year, ByteDance bought Hong Kong brokerage Asia-Pacific Securities, renaming it as Stellar Securities, according to a report in January of this year by the now-defunct Apple Daily newspaper. That followed the firm’s application in 2019 to register a trademark called Squirrel Securities, according to Hong Kong’s online intellectual property database.