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Tencent, People's Bank of China
Chinese technology giant Tencent faces a potentially big fine fine for breaching central bank regulations with its WeChat Pay mobile network, the Wall Street Journal reported. Beijing is tightening controls on fintech platforms.

Financial regulators recently discovered that WeChat Pay has flouted China’s anti-money-laundering rules and has had lapses in compliance with know your customer and “know your business” regulations, among other things, the newspaper’s sources said.

Tencent’s widely-used mobile payments network was also found to have allowed the transfer and laundering of funds with illicit transactions such as gambling, the report continued. For WeChat Pay, “know your customer” and “know your business” procedures mean that it must verify the identities of users and merchants transacting on its platform and the source of funds for those transactions.

The failings were found by The People’s Bank of China, during a routine inspection of WeChat Pay which concluded in late 2021.