China to Put Alipay, Tenpay Under Tighter Anti-Money Laundering Scrutiny
By Zhang Yuzhe
China’s central bank is moving to bring the country’s two payment giants, Ant Group Co. Ltd.’s Alipay and Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s Tenpay, under its direct anti-money laundering supervision, a significant escalation in Beijing’s campaign to manage financial risk at its most systemically important institutions.
The move is part of a proposed regulatory overhaul that would subject 27 major financial firms — including top banks, brokerages and insurers — to the direct oversight of the People’s Bank of China’s (PBOC) headquarters for compliance with rules against money laundering and terrorism financing.
The plan would tighten Beijing’s grip on the financial empires that have become central to the Chinese economy and signals a determined effort to align with global standards ahead of a critical international review.
The decision to add Alipay and Tenpay — the operator of WeChat Pay — which are ubiquitous in the daily lives of more than 1 billion users, underscores regulators’ focus on the vast troves of data and immense transactional power wielded by technology giants.
According to a draft regulation released by the PBOC on July 18, the number of firms under its headquarters’ direct oversight would expand from 23 to 27. The proposal, which updates a version from 2014, adds Alipay, Tenpay, and payment-platform clearinghouse NetsUnion Clearing Corp. to the list. Bank card network China UnionPay Co. Ltd. and its international arm, previously listed as one entity, are now counted as two.
The list of 27 firms reads like a who’s who of Chinese finance, including the “Big Six” state-owned commercial banks, nine national joint-stock banks, two top securities firms, and two leading insurers.
The timing of the revision is crucial. It comes after China implemented a new, stricter Anti-Money Laundering Law on Jan. 1. That law strengthens regulators’ ability to conduct “look-through” investigations into related parties and trace the entirety of a fund-transfer chain, giving authorities more powerful tools to combat illicit financial flows.
The PBOC has been supervising Alipay and Tenpay on their anti-money laundering obligations over the past two years, sources close to the central bank told Caixin. The new plan would formally place them under the direct oversight of the central bank’s headquarters.
“These two institutions have a status similar to systemically important institutions,” one of the sources said. “Their business is not only national, but their transaction volume is immense and cross-border business is frequent, making direct management by the PBOC headquarters necessary.”
The proposed changes are also driven by external pressures. China is bracing for its fifth mutual evaluation by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global standard-setter for combating money laundering. The evaluation, scheduled to run from November 2025 to February 2027, will be a major test of the country’s revamped regulatory framework. At a meeting earlier this year, the PBOC emphasized its goal of building an “internationally advanced” anti-money laundering system to meet the FATF’s standards.
The draft regulation is open for public feedback until July 30.
Contact editor Lin Jinbing (jinbinglin@caixin.com)
caixinglobal.com is the English-language online news portal of Chinese financial and business news media group Caixin. Global Neighbours is authorized to reprint this article.
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