Chinese Regulators Try to Get Jack Ma’s Ant Group to Share Consumer Data
China’s regulators are trying to get Jack Ma to do something the beleaguered billionaire has long resisted: share the troves of consumer-credit data collected by his financial-technology behemoth.To get more
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Mr. Ma has little room to bargain after the business empire he has built over decades has landed in the crosshairs of regulators and even President Xi Jinping, partly reflecting Beijing’s concern that the flamboyant entrepreneur has been too focused on his business fortunes rather than the state’s goal of controlling financial risks.
Central to the crackdown on Ant Group Co., in which Mr. Ma is the controlling shareholder, is what regulators view as the unfair competitive advantage the company has over small lenders or even big banks through swaths of personal data harnessed from its payment and lifestyle app Alipay.
The app, used by more than a billion people, has voluminous data on consumers’ spending habits, borrowing behaviors and bill- and loan-payment histories.Chinese regulators are reportedly pressing Jack Ma's fintech Ant Group to share consumer data with Beijing, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
Ma, founder of Alibaba and its affiliate Ant Group, hasn't been seen in public in two months. On Monday, CNBC anchor David Faber reported that he was laying low, rather than missing.
Regulators believe that Ant Group, founded in 2014, harnesses personal data from its payment app Alipay, giving the fintech a competitive advantage over smaller lenders and big banks, officials and government advisers familiar with the matter told the Journal.
Alipay, which has more than 1 billion users, accumulates vast amounts of data on consumers' spending habits, loan-payment histories, and borrowing behaviours, per the Journal.
