China’s financial technology companies have been banned from going public on Shanghai’s main stock exchange.
Months after the Chinese government abruptly suspended the highly anticipated market debut of Ant Group, other firms in the fintech sector are also struggling to list on mainland China stock exchanges.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission recently announced a series of updated guidelines for companies seeking to list on Shanghai’s STAR market — the Nasdaq-style technology board officially known as the "Shanghai Stock Exchange Science and Technology Innovation Board."
The new guidelines effectively ban financial technology companies from listing on the STAR exchange.
"Real estate and firms mainly engaged in financial services and investment businesses are prohibited from listing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board," the Chinese regulator said in a news release.
The ban comes weeks after Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com withdrew a planned listing of its financial technology arm on the STAR stock exchange.
The current initial public offering (IPO) climate stands in stark contrast to the situation less than six months ago when a slew of Chinese start-ups were planning to list domestically. One such listing was Alibaba-affiliate Ant Group, which would have been the biggest ever IPO.
Ant’s planned listing — set to take place simultaneously in Shanghai and Hong Kong — was abruptly cancelled after top executives, including founder Jack Ma, were summoned by Chinese regulators for questioning.
