Regulator supports lawful business with Ant Group

China's top banking and insurance regulator said it supports banking and insurance institutions to conduct business cooperation with Ant Group in accordance with laws and regulations, to better support the development of the real economy, Financial News reported on Friday.

An official of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission told the Beijing-based Financial News, a news outlet supervised by the People's Bank of China, the commission did not launch new regulatory measures recently on joint loans offered by banks and their partners.

Earlier this week, Caixin Media reported the CBIRC issued a guideline in September with the aim of warning joint-stock commercial lenders of managing risks associated with joint lending backed by partnerships with third-party institutions, including Ant Group, and the amount of such joint lending has surged to 2 trillion yuan ($301.8 billion).

At a news conference held by the State Council Information Office on Friday, Liu Fushou, chief lawyer of the CBIRC, said, "We support the financial sector to conduct reasonable innovation under the premise that risk remains controllable. At the same time, we also insist that innovations should serve and contribute to the real economy. Based on the financial features of fintech, we include all the financial activities in the scope of unified regulation."