The governor of China’s central bank, Yi Gang, announced a tightening of the regulation of the fintech sector afp_tickers
–
–This content was published on 08 October 2021 – 06:02
(AFP)
China will tighten oversight of the online payments industry and continue to fight monopolies in the sector, the central bank governor warned on Thursday, noting that Beijing will go ahead with its regulation of tech giants.
“We will continue to cooperate with antitrust authorities to curb monopolies and actively work against algorithmic discrimination and other new forms of anti-competitive practices,” said People’s Bank of China Governor Yi Gang during a Bank of China conference. International payments on the regulation of the sector.
In his speech, Yi also noted that the central bank will strengthen supervision in the digital payments industry and ask that all financial services companies be licensed.
“China’s major platforms have obtained massive data from users,” Yi said, noting that this “could lead to a monopoly of the market and compromise efficiency in innovation.”
In the past year, Chinese authorities have targeted the country’s tech behemoths, such as e-commerce giant Alibaba or food delivery platform Meituan, accusing them of monopolistic practices and aggressively collecting consumer data.
This effort is part of a broader government policy to strengthen its control of the second world economy in sectors such as private education, casinos or the real estate industry.
Among those most affected is the Alibaba empire of magnate Jack Ma.
The multibillion dollar listing of its subsidiary Ant Financial was suspended at the last minute almost a year ago by regulators.
–
