Ant Group to share consumer data with Beijing

As per the latest news reported, Chinese regulators may require Ant to feed its data into a nationwide credit-reporting system run by the People's Bank of China, the people said.

Chinese regulators are reportedly pressing Jack Ma's fintech Ant Group to share consumer data with Beijing, the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. Alipay is in possession of a good amount of data on users' spending, borrowing and bill and loan payment habits and histories and this app is used by more than a billion people, has voluminous data on consumers’ spending habits, borrowing behaviors and bill- and loan-payment histories.

Ma's Ant Group has made loans to half a billion people, and has worked with 100 commercial banks on supplying most of that funding, WSJ writes. Those arrangements have seen the banks taking most of the risks of borrowers defaulting, with Ant taking the profits as a middleman.

Central to the crackdown on Ant Group Co., in which Mr. Ma is the controlling shareholder, is what regulators view as the unfair competitive advantage the company has over small lenders or even big banks through swaths of personal data harnessed from its payment and lifestyle app Alipay.

Authorities want to overturn that model, due to what it says is potential for danger to the country's financial system. They want to make Ant utilize more of its own funds and also break what they say is the company's monopoly over data.

Probably, it is reason why Ma has been out of the public eye from last two months with this regulatory storm came down, many says, Ma may have been told to lay low for now due to the “delicate” situation.