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- Ant Group CEO Simon Hu has resigned due to personal reasons, Bloomberg first reported Friday.
- Ant, Jack Ma's Chinese fintech giant, confirmed the resignation in a statement.
- Chairman Eric Jing would take over as CEO, effective immediately, a source told Bloomberg.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Ant Group CEO Simon Hu has resigned.
He resigned for personal reasons, Bloomberg first reported. The company confirmed the news in a statement to Insider.
"The Ant Group Board of Directors has accepted Mr. Simon Hu's resignation request, due to personal reasons," a spokesperson said. "We are thankful to Simon for the efforts he made at our company."
Ant Group is an affiliate fintech company of Chinese retail behemoth Alibaba. It operates the Alipay digital payments network, and was founded by Chinese billionaire Jack Ma.
Chairman Eric Jing will become CEO, effective immediately, a source with knowledge of the matter told Bloomberg.
Ant did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
Ant parent Alibaba fell 2.5% in pre-market trading Friday.
Hu became Ant CEO in December 2019 after a year working as the group's president.
Before that, he spent four years as the CEO of Alibaba Cloud Computing. He also founded AliFinance.
Hu's resignation comes amid increasing scrutiny of Ant by Chinese regulators.
In November, Ant's initial public offering, set to be the biggest ever, was suspended in Shanghai and Hong Kong following a meeting between Ma and Chinese regulators.
And in late December, China's central bank and three financial watchdogs said they would urge Ant to implement stricter financial regulations for its banking services.
In January, The Wall Street Journal reported that the group planned to restructure itself as a financial holding company overseen by China's central bank. This would subject it to stricter regulations.