Beijing (AFP)
The boss of the online payment company Ant Group, a subsidiary of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, has resigned "for personal reasons," a spokesperson for the firm said on Friday.
Simon Hu was replaced by Eric Jing, who already held important positions in Ant Group, according to the company's website, a few months after the Chinese authorities canceled in extremis the company's initial public offering of online payment.
"The Ant Group board has accepted Simon Hu's request to resign for personal reasons," said a spokesperson for Ant Group.
The most famous Chinese businessman, Jack Ma, founder of Alibaba, has been in the crosshairs of the Chinese authorities for several months, especially after a speech in which he criticized the role of his country's financial regulators.
Its online payment service, Ant Group, has gained recognition through its main product, Alipay, an online payment platform and application, which is now deeply rooted in the Chinese economy.
It has also grown into personal and consumer loans, wealth management and insurance, for hundreds of millions of consumers and small businesses, sparking fear and jealousy in a larger, controlled banking system. by the Chinese state.
In November, Ant Group was to make an entry with fanfare on the places of Shanghai and Hong Kong with an amount never seen for an IPO: 34.4 billion dollars.
But the Chinese Communist authorities have decided to suspend its entry into the markets, thus cutting off the wings of a private group with ever greater influence.
At the end of December, Chinese regulators had ordered the leaders of Ant Group to drastically change its business model to refocus on its original online payment business.
© 2021 AFP