It has become the first online financial service platform to stop providing products that fall from the scope of regulation.
Ant Group is taking the intuitive move in removing all internet deposits from its shelves. The users who already hold the products will not be affected while others will have no channel to buy them.
Online deposits are normally offered by small banks with higher rates. They increase the difficulties in regulating smaller financial institutions as they break the regional restrictions of the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC). However, as such deposits only take up a tiny portion of the market, there are no written regulations that prohibit the business.
Other online financial service platforms, such as JD Digits, Du Xiaoman Financial, still sell online deposits with similar rates. Ant Group, which had lost some reputation from the postponed IPO, decided to be more conservative to make itself more in line with the supervising body.