Ant: China puts the ࢀ˜finࢀ™ back in fintech ࢀ" and a tech superstar is brought to heel

Claude Barfield November 19, 2020 There are almost as many theories about the unfolding Ant debacle as there are commentators. Here are the most notable explanations and key unanswered questions. First, some background. Ant Group is a spinoff from the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba. Alibaba is owned , though no longer managed, by Jack Ma, Chinaࢀ™s most famous billionaire and celebrity superstar. Ant in turn controls Alipay, a hugely successful digital payments app with more than a billion users in mainland China, which processed some ࢀœ $17 trillion in digital payments in the year to June [2020].ࢀ Ant also runs…