US-listed shares of Alibaba and other Chinese technology companies fell Monday after the Financial Times reported the Chinese government wants to break up Alipay, the financial services superapp from Ant Group, marking Beijing’s latest move to overhaul the fintech heavyweight run by billionaire Jack Ma.
Regulators have already ordered Ant to separate Alipay from its two lending units, Huabei and Jiebei, into a new entity and bring in outside shareholders. Beijing now wants those lending businesses to have an independent app, according to the report published Monday. Ant would also have to turn over user data that informs their lending decisions to a new and separate credit scoring joint-venture that would be partly state-owned, according to two unnamed sources.
