China’s largest third-party payment platform Alipay has sharply reduced the amount of money it offers to young users of its “chanting” account, according to several media reports, following a recent focus by Chinese regulators on overhauling the Internet finance industry. Alipay’s parent company, Ant Group, told Reuters on Wednesday that this was to promote “more rational” spending habits, but did not give any further details.
Domestic media reported that many young Chinese netizens have recently found that their credit limit on their account has been cut. One college graduate student said that her total credit limit was lowered this month, causing her to exceed her $3,000 limit by more than $5,000. The student said she hadn’t broken any rules, and that she hadn’t used up her monthly limit and had always paid it back on time. Another “90-year-old” from Shanghai said he had a 20,000 yuan credit limit, but it was recently lowered to 3,000 yuan, and he is not believed to have ever made a late payment.
In addition, Alipay has recently taken down its Internet deposit products, opening them only to users who have already purchased them.
Early last month, the initial public offering (IPO) of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba’s Ant Group was called off as a matter of urgency, and a recent meeting of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee suggested that we should “tackle all kinds of stock risks and prevent incremental risks”.
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