Chinese President Xi Jinping chaired a conference this week that approved publicizing the “healthy” development of the payment and fintech sectors. The meeting of the central commission for deepening overall reform also backed improving regulation of significant payment platforms, adding that companies would be encouraged to return to their roots while the authorities improve the regulation.
The meeting outlined that China will step up the supervision of large payment firms to ward off systemic financial risks and support platform companies in servicing the real economy, state news agency Xinhua said, without giving details. China will push large payment firms and fintech platforms to return to their roots and look to better coordinate supervision between various regulatory bodies, Xinhua quoted the meeting as saying.
China’s strict regulations doomed the IPO of Ant, China’s by far largest FinTech group and part of the Alibaba group of companies, in 2020. However, the new structure could pave the way for the company to set up a financial holding company and fold critical operations into it, following a model last year by the central bank.