NEW YORK/PALO ALTO, U.S. -- Chinese authorities summoned 13 companies in the financial technology sector including Tencent Holdings and ByteDance for a "supervision interview" Thursday, as Beijing looks to further tighten regulations on the sector following its crackdown against Ant Group.
The aim of the interview, as in the case of Ant, was to prevent monopolies and the "disorderly expansion of capital," while also examining poor corporate governance, regulatory arbitrage and unfair competition, the authorities said. The companies summoned Thursday, with large-scale operations and considerable influence in the sector, epitomize some of these problems, the People's Bank of China -- the country's central bank -- said in a release.