Beijing wants to break up Alipay, the superapp owned by Jack Ma’s Ant Group, and create a separate app for the company’s highly profitable loans business, Russian Forbes writes quoting the Financial Times sources.

Chinese regulators have already ordered Ant to separate from its main business the company’s two lending units - Huabei, which is similar to a traditional credit card, and Jiebei, which makes small unsecured loans - into a new entity and bring in outside shareholders. Now officials want these lending businesses to have their own independent app as well.

The plan would also require Ant to turn over the user data that underpins its lending decisions to a new and separate credit scoring joint-venture that would be partly state-owned.

“The government believes big tech’s monopoly power comes from their control of data. It wants to end that,” said one of the FT’s sources.

“Under the plan being considered, Ant will lose its ability to independently assess borrowers’ creditworthiness. A future Alipay user in need of credit would see their request first routed to the new joint venture credit scoring company where their credit profile is held and then on to the new Huabei and Jiebei lending app to issue the credit,” the FC writes.

Banks.am reminds that last year, Ant Group planned to hold the largest listing in the history of IPO, which would value at over USD 34 billion. However, it was paused two days before the listing on the exchange. Ant Group said it was due to the change in China’s regulations for fintech companies.

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