The move underlines a broader push by Ant and other Chinese tech majors, including Tencent and Bytedance, to bulk up in financial services closer to home as they battle mounting scrutiny for their technology business overseas and a Sino-US standoff. Ant, 33% owned by ecommerce company Alibaba Group Holding, has already amassed a range of financial licenses, including payments, online banking, insurance, and micro lending to operate in China's financial market valued at trillions of dollars.
Every day we send out a free e-mail with the most important headlines of the last 24 hours.
Subscribe now
We welcome comments that add value to the discussion. We attempt to block comments that use offensive language or appear to be spam, and our editors frequently review the comments to ensure they are appropriate. If you see a comment that you believe is inappropriate to the discussion, you can bring it to our attention by using the report abuse links. As the comments are written and submitted by visitors of the The Paypers website, they in no way represent the opinion of The Paypers.