China Continues Attacking Jack Ma Deal: Alibaba Payment App Shuts Down

Jack Ma is a Chinese businessman and investor. He is the co-founder and CEO of the Alibaba Group, a powerful international technology group. The philanthropist made headlines when he disappeared for months last October after criticizing Chinese regulators and state banks. He reappeared in January this year, but relations with the Chinese Communist Party were no longer the best. In late 2020, Chinese regulators announced an investigation against Alibaba for alleged monopolistic practices. This February China announced new antitrust rules with a focus on large internet companies.

Now the Chinese regime wants to get rid of the popular payment app Alipay from the giant Alibaba group.

China wants to end the Alibaba empire

The Chinese regime wants to gradually dismantle the powerful Alibaba group, and now the target is the popular payment app Alipay. This action will put an end to the lucrative online lending business. Financial Times...

This mobile payment service is an indispensable application in China, where money has practically disappeared and the vast majority of payments are made using a smartphone.

To control what the authorities classify as oligopoly technology giants application should be divided into two separate parts.

According to the Financial Times, one organization will support the payment service while the other will focus on online lending. In addition, Ant Group, Alibaba's subsidiary that owns Alipay, will have to transfer the details of users who applied for credit in its application to a rating agency partially controlled by the state.

Neither Ant Group nor Alibaba responded immediately to AFP inquiries. In recent months, Chinese officials have launched a campaign to contain what they perceive as "disorderly" economic development, which is damaging affected businesses in the tens of millions of dollars.

This is another blow to the Alibaba empire after the service was fined 18.2 billion yuan (about $ 2.82 billion) in late 2020 for abuse of market dominance.