BEIJING: Chinese regulators said on Friday they had fined fintech giant Ant Group almost $1 billion for “illegal acts” and handed an affiliate of rival Tencent a $415 million penalty, adding that a long-running crackdown on tech firms was drawing to a close.

Ant operates Alipay, the world’s largest digital payments platform, which boasts hundreds of millions of monthly users in China and beyond. It was one of the most prominent targets of a sweeping crackdown on the country’s tech sector.

“In view of the illegal and irregular acts by Ant Group and its affiliates in previous years... (the companies) have been fined 7.123 billion yuan (US$984m),” the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) said in a statement.

The penalty “included the confiscation of illegal income”, added the statement, which was also carried by the country’s central bank.

In a separate filing, the central bank said it had fined Tenpay, an online-payment firm operated by Ant rival Tencent, a total of nearly 3 billion yuan ($415m). The penalty included the confiscation of more than 550 million yuan in ill-gotten income, the central bank said.

In recent years, Ant has expanded into offering loans, credit, investments and insurance to hundreds of millions of consumers and small businesses.

Published in Dawn, July 8th, 2023