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Ant is definitely not a pyramid scheme, if you've ever been to China you'd know.

But b. is very credible. Jack has been criticized by state media as he piled negative comments to the regulators and traditional lenders - and frankly the regulators were right. Ant essentially needs no deposit to lend, relying on big data and not any traditional financial safety instruments. It's been overlooked for a while but when you get the big benefit of living outside of regulations you shut up and take what you get, and not making a public fuss about how 'every bank is stupid for following regulations'.

your first sentence contradicts your second paragraph :)

> Ant is definitely not a pyramid scheme, if you've ever been to China you'd know.

> frankly the regulators were right. Ant essentially needs no deposit to lend

Low deposit rate makes it a very risky lending business, not necessarily a pyramid scheme

> Ant essentially needs no deposit to lend,

Not necessarily deposits but reserves; the whole European financial crisis of 2008+ was over the question of "what IS the minimum reserve level for systemic safety?"?

> relying on big data and not any traditional financial safety instruments

This is the Boeing 737-MAX approach: it's not intrinsically safe, but we can cover its shortcomings with software.

To be fair no giant metal tube is intrinsically safe when thrown through the air at 1000kph. Now, the MAX, obviously, less so haha.

Air travel is extremely, incredibly safe. It's safer than any means of travel have ever been in the history of the planet.

That doesn't make throwing a metal tube through the air intrinsically safe, it just means we're very cognizant of how dangerous it is.

I guess it depends how on what you mean by intrinsically

I’m just saying a plane wouldn’t stay up without extensive software control. Substantially all the avionics on a plane are dedicated to covering the shortcomings and turning an intrinsically unsafe process into an exceptionally safe process.

> Ant is definitely not a pyramid scheme, if you've ever been to China you'd know.

As someone who lived in China for 9 years, these kinds of arguments are always really vacuous. Perhaps just say Ant isn't like Amway and has a low fraud rate (for China, anyways), which is probably enough to deflect the pyramid scheme argument without resorting to an authority fallacy.

> As someone who lived in China for 9 years [...] without resorting to an authority fallacy.

hmm...

He's not supporting his point by invoking his time in China. He's directly using it to deflate the other comment which _did_ use it as support for their claim.

It's appealing to an authority to say (or, to demonstrate from experience) that it is false authority.

> Ant is definitely not a pyramid scheme, if you've ever been to China you'd know.

I have been to China. As a foreigner I was not able to use any digital cash technologies (such as WeChat or Alipay). Did you have a Chinese bank account? How were you able to use Ant tech?

Apparently it’s recommended for visitors to get a Chinese bank account which was easy to do. At least it was in the past. Which I learned from a YouTube channel about living in China.

The guys sister visited for a few weeks and the first thing he did was take her to a bank and open an account. Which she was able to do as a foreigner.

I don’t know if that has changed recently.

I'm not sure what "recent" means, but 3-4 years ago when i first got to China it was very difficult to open a bank account as a foreigner, even with a huge wad of yuan in my pocket. It might just be the areas i visited, but i tried several different banks while traveling on a tourist visa and every single one said no.

I eventually was able to open an account, but i had to show proof of residence (apartment lease), proof of residence registration (obtained from local police), work permit and employment contract. Even opening a second account a couple years later (required because many employers in China will only pay into one specific bank) and speaking fairly fluent Chinese i had to go through the same song and dance.

That’s interesting, I may be wrong then about the odds in general of this approach. The guy had a work permit permit and lived in Shenzhen.

He now left China for good over various reasons and now makes anti China for a living (whom I’m sure is easy for anyone to find) but I remember that one distinctly being fairly recent. Upon second thought he may have referenced it in one of the videos of why he left China where one of his biggest complaints is how it’s harder for foreigners to live there than ever at the moment.

I personally don’t know much about the topic sadly. I was planning to go then the pandemic hit.

Shenzhen and Shanghai are possibly the only two that could do it within days and not weeks.

In ALL other regions ( including Beijing ) it is either weeks / months or literally impossible. ( Because no one knows how to do it )

Good to know. I'm curious why Shanghai is on your list but not Beijing.

It is basically down to experience and efficiency of those operations and know-how. Beijing tends to be a tad slower and stricter. It is still infinitely better better than say, Nanjing, where no one in the branch has a clue how to do it.

You have to have a resident visa (like a Z working or a student visa). I've never heard of any bank giving bank accounts to tourists; on the other hand it is easy to get one when you have all the proper docs. Getting a credit card on the other hand...forget it.

One of the many exhausting things about living in China as a foreigner is how much of their tech infrastructure excludes anyone who is not a Chinese citizen. Aside from the challenge of getting Alipay set up, the moment you leave mainland China (even to Hong Kong) you can no longer use Alipay to pay for anything, even though Chinese citizens are able to do this without any trouble.

Similarly, a lot of government-mandated apps require you to enter a state ID number which foreigners are not issued. The worst was living there through the coronavirus lockdowns and travel restrictions, because every town had its own special corona app to prove you had a green health code, but hardly any towns supported registration with a foreign passport. I presume that's changed now (i don't live there any more), but it's China, so there will undoubtedly be a new hazy private/public partnership gimmick app that makes things awkward for foreigners.

China's law does not apply, at least not easily, to a foreign citizens acting on a foreign soil, thus the Chinese company providing service would mean huge legal hazard for them, which is not the case for chinese citizen, where the contract entered between two chinese entities are protected under Chinese law and can be argued on a court of that jurisdiction.

Not parent, I had a few Chinese bank accounts but at the time you needed a Chinese ID number to use digital cash technologies. And no, Ant never became a thing for me (left in late 2016).

> Also, China is suffering from dollar shortage/flight (foreign manufacturing moving out, foreign retailers moving in)

No longer the case after COVID pandemic, Yuan is appericating

> The Chinese government doesn't want such a huge financial entity owned by foreign owners

Ant had been allowed to exist for a long time, I don't see this really as an issue.

TBH, b. is probably the most likely reason. Criticizing governmental authority is a dangerous act even for Jack Ma, especially when your business needs its blessing.

Also Ant's IPO had caused quite a lot of controversy even before this, like selling their own shares through Alipay, etc.

Anyway, I see this an isolated case, where the CN government wants to give Jack Ma a lesson to put him in place.

For A, it's not possible to for Ant group's listing to exacerbate China's dollar shortage, as Ant's business is done in CNY and investors would be trading in CNY, at least for it's Shanghai listing.

The sales of shares privately to a group investors in 2018 sounds very dodgy to me. Frankly, listing the company in Shanghai Exchange will give it a much higher valuable than in an US exchange.

Right now Ant Group's valuation is way lower than their IPO price. It could even be bankrupt and be nationalized, depending on investigations into their books, and what the Chinese government feels like that day.

There won't be any Chinese luckin coffee shaninigans in US exchange by end of 2021, according to new accounting standards https://www.thenationalnews.com/business/markets/us-to-delis.... Also, expect a large wave of Chinese companies delisting in 2021.

Friendly warning: check your mutual and index funds exposure to Chinese companies on US exchanges.

Of course last round valuation would be lower than IPO price, that's why IPO is called exit for early investors. And valuation DOES NOT bankrupt a company.

> A couple of guesses here

Let me guess, it's going to be the mindless propaganda that you've been brainwashed with via tradional and social media. Let's find out.

> The Chinese government doesn't want such a huge financial entity owned by foreign owners (even though they have claimed they are allowing more foreign entries in financial sectors). Also, China is suffering from dollar shortage/flight (foreign manufacturing moving out, foreign retailers moving in), and this IPO could exacerbate it

If china is facing "dollar shortage", then why would they ban foreign money? Wouldn't they want more dollars? Also, don't people like you claim that china owns us because they own so much of our debt? If so, how can they be experiencing dollar shortage if they own over $1 trillion of US bonds? Also they are not allowing more "foreign entries" in financial sector but they are allowing more foreign entries in retail? Finally, if you think an IPO is going to affect "dollar shortage" issue, then you haven't a clue what you are talking about. What about all the other major tech IPOs, like BABA, which had significant foreign investment. Not to mention all the foreign venture capitalists in china? Why isn't china kicking them out? Has china banned foreign investment/capital?

> This is a big no no right now, especially since Xi's dictatorship is wobbly.

I thought he was an "emperor" for life. Now his "dictatorship" is wobbly? Be consistent. What's next? You are going to call him a mafia boss?

> check out recently delisted Chinese companies in US stock exchanges.

Is it misreporting or is it the trade war?

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-china-limits-id...

If what you are saying is correct, why isn't the other company affiliated with Jack Ma ( BABA ) delisted?

> (if you ask me, why would anyone invest in any mafia pyramid scheme with no guarantee you'll get your money out...)

But you were just complaining that "even though they have claimed they are allowing more foreign entries in financial sectors".

On the one hand, you are whining that the chinese aren't allowing more financial entries into their market. And then you claim that it's a mafia pyramid scheme that nobody should invest in. Shouldn't you be praising china for keeping "foreign entries" out of their "mafia pyramid scheme"? Once again, be consistent. Another student of peter navarro at the gordon chang's school of propaganda.

Not too long ago, many people on HN were deliberating on how Ant is a national security threat because Jack Ma is a CCP member, implying that Ant is basically a state-controlled organization. I wonder what those people have to say now.

Right now I am neither arguing whether it is or isn't a national security concern. I just want to highlight that people's general understanding of how things work in China is very poor, and that one should be careful with speculations like that. At the very least I think more people should recognize that the Chinese government and the CCP are not monoliths, and that the distance between "the boss of the company is a CCP member" and "the company is state-controlled" is larger than what many think.

It is and it isn’t. China is just special in the way that fraud and corruption commingle with business and government. It isn’t unique by any stretch, but it’s certainly...different.

I’ll put it this way: I take an extremely skeptical view of basically anything originating out of China in matters of this sort. I wouldn’t be surprised if “Ant is basically a state run company” and “Ma/Ant aren’t necessarily entirely instruments of the Chinese government” are both true in different contexts. That’s just how screwed up it is.

In China, support for the US, and western liberalism in general, is dropping. In 2020 it has reached a new low. One of the reasons for this is because mainland Chinese people feel that the western world doesn't judge them fairly, that the western world will never accept them.

Your comment is a good representation of what they're thinking of. Your comment basically comes down to "China can do no good". It doesn't matter what China's concrete actions are — in the end, an interpretation for those actions will be found in order to fit the narrative that China is sinister. You are in your full right to do this. But such an attitude has implications for the other party.

Why should Chinese people support western opinions, if they will never be accepted no matter what they do? Sometimes, China is willing to concede on a few issues in order to gain improved relations. But if improving relations is impossible, no matter how many concessions, then why should they concede anything? If one is treated like an enemy anyway, then one may as well become a real enemy, since there is no reputation to be gained.

For example, I've been arguing for a while that one of the reasons why they went ahead with the Hong Kong National Security Law after a year, is because they realized that they can't gain a better relationship with the US by not introducing the security law, so may as well do it and gain more social stability. But many people can't comprehend this idea because they're too stuck on the "China bad" narrative.

I am not arguing that China is all good — of course it isn't, China has lots of issues. But being skeptical of everything?

In this context, excessive cynicism is dangerous. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. I fear that some day all this leads to increased polarization, and a hot war.

> I thought he was an "emperor" for life. Now his "dictatorship" is wobbly? Be consistent. What's next? You are going to call him a mafia boss?

Xi did arrange himself a lifetime position. And yes, a dictatorship's stability can fluctuate.

> Xi did arrange himself a lifetime position.

He did or the political party did. Also removing term limits isn't the same as giving oneself a lifetime position. Lots of countries don't have term limits. Like Germany for example. Nobody would claim merkel is a dictator.

> And yes, a dictatorship's stability can fluctuate.

Right. His dictatorship is so wobbly that he made himself emperor. Which is it?

There is lot you can criticize china, unfortunately, the nonsense you see on social media really misses the target. Whatever happened to the pathetic "winnie the pooh" nonsense?

> Right. His dictatorship is so wobbly that he made himself emperor. Which is it?

Are you are being deliberately obtuse?

It's entirely reasonable that his strength and stability could change from "strong" enough to remove his term limits to "wobbly". Or it could have fluctuated towards even stronger. It doesn't matter, the point is that stability is not a constant so your objection doesn't really make sense.

Schrödinger's China: China is fake communist country, except when they try to regulate financial markets to better serve the masses.

Sinohagen Interpretation.