The form and function of Ant's technology platform is no different to that of Google,Facebook and Amazon.com. And just like its US"Big Tech"peers,Ant and its parent Alibaba,have become so dominant that regulatory action was inevitable.
As it turns out,the necessary trigger came courtesy of Ma and his speech in late October last year at a high-profile financial forum in Shanghai,where the tech tycoon berated the Chinese banks for acting like “pawn shops”.
Ma has been remarkably quiet since then. The Ant IPO has sunk and the company could potentially be broken up as regulators look to get the company to provide more transparency on its inner- workings. Faced with this level of scrutiny keeping a low profile is probably in Ma's best interest.
But headlines like"Jack Ma is missing"sparked memories of the country's dealings with other high profile businessmen.
Earlier this week China sentenced Lai Xiaomin,the former head of one of the country’s biggest asset manager China Huarong Asset Management Co,to death on charges of corporate malfeasance as part of President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption crackdown.
In 2015,China executed the then boss of Hanlong Mining,billionaire Lui Han,over running a"mafia-style"operation in the country. Lui was widely believed to have links to disgraced former security tsar and President Xi corruption target Zhou Yongkang.