Tencent exploring a financial holding company for WeChat Pay if Chinese regulators require it

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Chinese tech giant Tencent is exploring whether regulators will require it to create a financial holding company to house is fintech business, a top executive said on Wednesday. The comments come after Bloomberg reported last week that Chinese authorities are considering requiring Tencent to include WeChat Pay, its ubiquitous mobile payments service, in a new financial holding company. "We have been continuously exploring the establishment of the financial holding company and looking at the regulation with respect to that and whether there is a requirement for that," Tencent President Martin Lau said on an earnings call with media Wednesday, after the firm posted its slowest revenue growth on record. Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that Tencent needs to place its banking, securities, insurance and credit-scoring services into a financial holding company that can be regulated like a traditional bank. Tencent, via messaging app WeChat, offers services from payments to microloans.

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