Report: Ant Group, banks to curb joint online loans to customers

Chinese banks and Ant will evaluate lending caps after regulators recently expressed their intention to curb online loans, the report noted, citing people privy to the matter.

Banks in Zhejiang province, where Ant is based, have been required to decrease joint loans made through Ant’s customer credit products Huabei and Jiebei, the sources shared. Several lenders in Shanghai have set up timelines for this reduction, while at least one lender in Shandong province has already ended its cooperation with the fintech giant, they added.

It was also reported that Ant is working on a restructuring plan through which it can transfer from a fintech company into a financial holding firm.

The developments come after Ant Group’s US$35 billion dual-listing was suspended due to regulatory issues late last year.

According to Alibaba, which owns a third of Ant, the fintech titan’s IPO plans “are subject to substantial uncertainties,” and it cannot “make a complete and fair assessment of the impact that these changes and uncertainties will have on Alibaba Group.”

Francis Chan, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, estimated that Ant’s valuation may have decreased to under US$108 billion from a pre-money valuation of US$208 billion before its IPO was shelved, according to the report.