Chinese regulators are again cracking down on internet platforms looking to offer fintech services, in a bid to curb monopolistic practices and enhance competition, reported Business Insider.
The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) has stated that all domestic internet platforms offering fintech services need to internally assess and address any regulatory shortcomings.
These services include online microlending, insurance, wealth management, and trusts. The CBIRC added that it will soon directly investigate whether these often large firms are correctly licensed and to ensure they are not unfairly advantaged against smaller fintechs, reported Reuters.
China’s financial regulators have summoned Alibaba’s financial technology affiliate Ant Group for talks recently over outstanding problems.
“(Ant’s) problems are not individual, but universal to some extent,” China’s Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) said in an online statement.
The watchdog urged platforms conducting online micro-lending, insurance, wealth management and trusts business to speed up their internal investigation processes, and said it would arrange investigations in the near future.
“The rapid development of fintech has brought problems in cybersecurity, market monopoly, data ownership, consumer rights protection and other issues, affecting market fairness and financial stability,” the CBIRC said.
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