Ant Group starts to differentiate consumer loan business Jiebei from bank loans

BEIJING, Nov 8 (Reuters) – China’s Ant Group mentioned on Monday that it is earning endeavours to “differentiate” section of its small-term client personal loan organization Jiebei, as it pursues a Beijing-led restructuring aimed at reining in some of its freewheeling firms.

Ant, the money affiliate of e-commerce large Alibaba Team (9988.HK), observed its $37 billion IPO derailed by regulators final calendar year and has since been doing work to flip by itself into a fiscal holding agency. read much more

Nearby media on the weekend documented modifications at Jiebei right after Chinese regulators in April questioned Ant to carry out a sweeping business enterprise overhaul, which involves folding its credit goods Jiebei and Huabei, into a new purchaser finance agency.

They also criticised Huabei and Jiebei for inappropriate links among payment expert services and economic products and solutions, declaring that these may possibly have around promoted bank loan expert services to buyers.

The Shanghai Securities Information reported on Sunday, citing borrowers, that the Jiebei system had designed variations to demonstrate which financial loans had been remaining provided by Chongqing Ant Customer Finance Co, and which ended up supplied by banking companies.

“Jiebei is gradually functioning on model differentiation,” an Ant Group spokesperson claimed, including that purchaser credit rating companies offered independently by banks or other economic establishments will be presented on a “credit rating bank loan” web page.

Ant did not elaborate on how considerably of its business would be impacted by the brand name differentiation.

Ant has been requested by regulators to comprehensive the branding restructuring of Huabei and Jiebei within 6 months after its shopper finance organization starts off to function, area media the 21st Century Business Herald reported earlier.

Ant’s customer finance unit won acceptance to start off running in Chongqing city in June. go through a lot more

Huabei and Jiebei had been utilised by all-around 500 million men and women in the 12 months to June 30, 2020, Ant explained in its IPO prospectus.

In September, Ant’s digital credit history card assistance Huabei started to send its client credit score information to a databases run by China’s central financial institution, a important move for equally the business and regulators as Beijing tightens its grip in excess of the money technologies sector. examine more

Reporting by Cheng Leng and Brenda Goh modifying by Richard Pullin

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