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Ant Group CEO Simon Hu has resigned, Bloomberg reported.
He resigned for personal reasons, a person with knowledge of the matter told the publication.
An Ant spokesperson confirmed the resignation to Bloomberg.
Chairman Eric Jing will become CEO, effective immediately, the source said.
Ant Group is an affiliate fintech company of Chinese retail behemoth Alibaba. It operates the Alipay digital payments network, and was founded by Chinese billionaire Jack Ma.
Ant parent Alibaba fell 2.5% in pre-market trading Friday.
Hu became Ant CEO in December 2019 after a year working as the group’s president.
Before that, he spent four years as the CEO of Alibaba Cloud Computing. He also founded AliFinance.
Hu’s resignation comes amid increasing scrutiny of Ant by Chinese regulators.
In November, Ant’s initial public offering, set to be the biggest ever, was suspended in Shanghai and Hong Kong following a meeting between Ma and Chinese regulators.
And in late December, China’s central bank and three financial watchdogs said they would urge Ant to implement stricter financial regulations for its banking services.
In January, The Wall Street Journal reported that the group planned to restructure itself as a financial holding company overseen by China’s central bank. This would subject it to stricter regulations.
This is a developing story.