Ant Financial Services Group (which offers Alipay) said on Monday (Jan. 15) that it has garnered approval in China to issue consumer credit backed securities to institutional investors.
Reuters reported that the company, which is the financial affiliate of Alibaba, is pricing the securities, and will look to boost capital while reducing its leverage ratio – the latter an initiative that is necessary to meet regulatory standards.
The newswire noted that the company is the dominant force in consumer loan securities in China, with a 60 percent market share of all issued loans. That’s tied to data as gathered from China Securitization Analytics.
In other Ant Financial news, the company apologized for auto-enrolling users in its credit scoring system – without their knowledge – via its new shopping profile service. The firm’s site had a box (one that was checked by default) that enrolled users into the Sesame Credit service. After an uproar, the firm changed those settings and said that no users who had been unwittingly signed up would be enrolled in that program.
And in still other news tied to the company, Ant’s bid for MoneyGram was shot down by regulators in the wake of security concerns.
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