Ant Financial refuses to share more consumer data with China’s central bank

Ant Group has defied government pressure to share more consumer data with China’s central bank, after it was forced to pull its record USD 37 billion initial public offering in 2020.

The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) wants to create a pool of credit data to help big state-owned banks assess creditworthiness as consumer loan defaults have increased.

Ant had agreed to provide some information to a state-backed database on the 500 million customers who have taken out loans, including their personal identities, monthly borrowing amounts, and debt repayment statuses.

According to reports, the company has shared little of its data, blaming privacy laws, as users must give their approval before the company can send their information to the central bank. China’s data protection standards require companies to obtain consumers’ consent on how they use their data, including passing it on to third parties.

Ant began reporting some transaction data on Jiebei to the CRC as early as 2018. The company also began sharing some data on Huabei shortly before the IPO was pulled.