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Ant Group appoints risk-control veteran as senior executive in consumer lending arm as its business restructuring nears completion

June 26, 2022 7:25 pm

Alibaba’s fintech affiliate Ant Group has hired a risk-control veteran as vice president of Chongqing Ant Consumer Finance, its consumer lending business unit, as the company nears the end of a corporate restructuring aimed at easing government concerns.

According to an official announcement published on Friday, The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission’s office in Chongqing has approved the appointment of Qiao Zhanwen.

Qiao was formerly a risk strategy management executive at Ant’s microlending business, according to his CV posted on Chinese social media platform Maimai.

Chongqing Ant Consumer was established by Ant in June last year, the consumer lending arm was designed to fold Ant Group’s two micro-loan businesses Jiebei and Huabei into one entity as a part of the regulators’ efforts to restructure Jack Ma’s fintech empire under supervision. These online services are now subject to rules and requirements in line with traditional banks.

In order to meet requirements of the country’s regulators. Ant has already redesigned its micro-lending products on its Alipay app. Ant’s lending service Huabei, which means “just spend” in Mandarin, has been fully integrated into a government credit-reporting system overseen by China’s central bank in September last year.

Since then, Huabei users would be asked to authorize sharing of credit information with the PBOC credit reporting system.

Chinese regulators ordered a restructuring of Ant Group after the fintech giant summoned by the regulators in November,2020 that led to the canceled IPO. Ant Group was asked to turn into a financial holding company overseen by the central bank.

Speculation over the potential resumption of Ant’s IPO sparked recently after the company reshuffled its board of directors, adding Laura Cha, who is chairwoman of Hong Kong Exchanges and a member of the Executive Council of the Hong Kong government, as an independent director.

After the appointment, Ant Group has four independent directors. Other independent directors are Hao Quan, a board member at PC giant Lenovo’s parent company Legend Holdings Corp, and Chinese economist Huang Yiping.