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The People's Bank of China (PBOC) has ordered Ant Group to "cut off" the "improper connections" between its payment platform and its financial products. The PBOC also told told Ant to become a financial holding company that will be regulated more like a bank, eliminate unfair competition in its payments business, end its monopoly on information, improve its corporate governance, and better manage liquidity risks in its major fund products (including downsizing its Yu'ebao money-market fund ). http://www.pbc.gov.cn/goutongjiaoliu/113456/113469/4229432/index.html

Ant Group has set up a working group to rectify its business practices under the close watch of Peoples' Bank of China and other financial regulators. The regulators will tell Ant Group which parts of its fintech platform need to be regulated as financial institutions, and the portions of the business that need new operating licences. The licenced financial services businesses will then be moved into a holding company and subjected to regulatory scrutiny. China's State Council has laid out guidelines for establishing a financial holding and said companies must apply to the PBOC to do so by November 1, 2021.

Ant Group and Chinese regulators have reportedly agreed on a restructuring plan that will turn Ant into a financial holding company, making it subject to capital requirements similar to those for banks. The plan calls for putting all of Ant's businesses into the holding company, including its technology offerings in areas like blockchain and food delivery. One of Ant's early proposals to regulators had envisioned putting only financial operations into the new structure.

The People's Bank of China ordered Ant Group to return to its roots as a provider of payments services, threatening to throttle growth in its most lucrative businesses of consumer loans and wealth management. The central bank summoned Ant executives over the weekend and told them to "rectify" the company's lending, insurance and wealth management services. They also blasted Ant for sub-par corporate governance, disdain toward regulatory requirements, and engaging in regulatory arbitrage. The central bank said Ant used its dominance to exclude rivals, hurting the interests of its hundreds of millions of consumers. http://www.pbc.gov.cn/goutongjiaoliu/113456/113469/4153479/index.html

The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) is reportedly reviewing equity investments held by Ant Group in dozens of companies, intensifying a crackdown on billionaire Jack Ma's financial technology empire. Regulators are considering whether to instruct Ant to divest some of its investments, mainly in technology and fintech start-ups, if they violate any rules such as creating unfair competition in the market.

China's banking regulator has tightened rules governing how online lending platforms fund their loans, a move that analysts say could hit the valuation of Jack Ma's Ant Group. Under the rule changes announced over the weekend by the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, online lending platforms will have to contribute 30 per cent of the funding for loans they offer in partnership with banks. The CBIRC will also cap how much capital commercial banks can commit to online lending in co-operation with tech platforms. The new rules will come into force next year.

In April 2021, the Digital Currency Research Institute of the People's Bank of China reportedly signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Ant Group. The two will jointly work on promoting the platform for the digital yuan. The platform will be based on Ant Group's proprietary distributed database called OceanBase and mobile development platform mPaaS.