The Communist Party’s fintech giant Ant Group has been caught up in a regulatory storm that has rocketed the position of Guo Shuqing, chairman of the Communist Party’s Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission. The British media reports that Guo Shuqing has been a key figure leading the crackdown on Ant Group since its IPO was called off last November, with his power even pushing Xi Jinping‘s heavyweight Liu He.
The Financial Times reports that the Communist Party’s crackdown on Jack Ma‘s Ant Group has expanded the power of Guo Shuqing, chairman of the Communist Party’s Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, who has been leading the charge against the fintech group. Guo Shuqing is rising to the top, second only to Xi Jinping’s most trusted economic “think tank,” Premier Liu He, according to government officials and advisers.
Guo has played a major role in introducing new measures that have been approved by Xi, according to government officials.
The report said Xi has long distrusted private entrepreneurs, believing they pose a threat to the Communist regime.
The newspaper quoted an adviser to the Communist Party’s central bank (People’s Bank of China) as saying that Xi Jinping wanted to regulate the financial sector and that Guo Shuqing put Xi’s ideas into practice; and put pressure on the regulator who had approved the Ant Group IPO case.
Officials have revealed that Guo Shuqing wants to succeed Liu He.
But Chen Long of the Beijing-based consulting firm Plenum believes Liu He has extremely powerful powers, and he doesn’t think anyone will succeed him.
The fallout from Ant Group’s hold on its IPO is still fresh, as the Communist Party’s central bank tightened its grip on Ant Group last month, introducing a new draft anti-monopoly law that could force the group’s payments unit to be spun off.
Reuters reported on Feb. 4, citing sources familiar with the matter, that Ant Group plans to divest its consumer credit data business, making concessions to regulators. That would help the fintech giant restart its initial public offering (IPO).
Guo Shuqing, 65, was a longtime member of the Communist Party’s National Economic Reform Commission, exiled to Guizhou province as vice governor in 1998, and has served as vice governor of the Communist Party’s central bank, chairman of the Construction Bank, chairman of the Securities Regulatory Commission and governor of Shandong province since 2001, before becoming chairman of the Communist Party’s Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC) in 2017. in 2018, the CBRC and CIRC merged to form the Communist Party’s Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC), with Guo Shuqing serving as the The first chairman of the CIRC and also secretary of the party committee and vice governor of the People’s Bank of China.
The website of the CPC Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) released news on November 2, 2020 that the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC), CPC Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), and State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) conducted regulatory interviews with Jack Ma, the actual controller of Ant Group, and other individuals.
On the same day, Guo Shuqing presided over an enlarged meeting of the Party Committee of the CBRC, at which he requested to “firmly guard the bottom line of no systemic risk”.
On December 8, 2020, according to a press release on the website of the CBIRC, Guo Shuqing gave a speech at the Singapore Fintech Festival in which he described the use of Fintech in China as “crossing the river by feeling the stones” in terms of legal regulation and risk supervision.
Guo Shuqing again called for greater attention to risk, saying that the Chinese Communist Party should also pay attention to the risk of a new type of “too big to fail”. He also said some large technology companies involved in various financial and technology fields, cross-border mixed business, “timely and accurate demolition of bombs to eliminate new systemic risk potential.”
Guo Shuqing’s statement is believed to point to the Ant Group, which has just been suspended from the market. And then more for Alibaba and Ant Group’s round of purge storm descended.
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