Ant Group is planning to turn itself into a financial holding company overseen by China’s central bank, responding to pressure to fall fully in line with financial regulations. The plan represents a significant turnaround by a digital-payments juggernaut that has in recent years tried to shed its image as a financial-services provider and fashion itself as an internet-technology company, which helped it command lofty valuations.
“Financial regulators were concerned that Ant’s regulatory arbitrage had allowed the company to provide a rosy picture of its overall financial position and hide the financial risks engendered by its aggressive expansion into new lines of business,” he said.