China’s Anti-Monopoly Crackdown Hits Banking Sector

Chinese regulators extend their antitrust crackdown to the banking sector with a fine against shareholders of a virtual lender.

The shareholders of Chinese virtual lender AliBank – China Citic Bank (70 percent) and a Baidu unit called Fujian Baidu Bo Rui Netcom (30 percent) – have been fined 500,000 yuan ($78,280) over a violation of the country’s anti-monopoly law, according to a statement from the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR).

SAMR issued a fine over the failure to report the AiBank joint venture ahead of its formation in 2015.

The penalty was part of a broader batch of more than 40 cases with fines issued to other tech firms outside of the banking sector such as JD.com, Tencent, Baidu, ByteDance, and Alibaba.

AiBank is an artificial intelligence-focused lender that leverages related capabilities from search engine giant Baidu.

It is one of five licensed digital banks in China and the only one with a state-backed shareholder in Citic.

According to research by McKinsey released in January, Chinese digital banks own roughly 5 percent of the country’s 5 trillion yuan unsecured consumer loan market and over 7 percent of the SME loan market.