Tencent Shares Down On Report Of AML Violations

Tencent shares fell 10 percent on Monday following a Wall Street Journal report claiming the Chinese tech giant could face a record fine for violating some central bank regulations on its WeChat Pay mobile network.

Financial regulators recently found that WeChat Pay had broken anti-money-laundering rules and been guilty of lapses in compliance with "know your customer" and "know your business" regulations, the newspaper said, adding that potential fines could total at least hundreds of millions of yuan.

Tencent shares dropped to close at $331.80 in Hong Kong, their lowest closing level since December 5, 2019.

Neither Tencent nor the People's Bank of China have responded to the Wall Street Journal’s report, which claims that the PBOC uncovered the violations during a routine inspection of WeChat Pay that concluded late last year.

The mobile payments network was also found to have permitted the transfer and laundering of funds in connection with illicit activities such as gambling, the report said.

Last year, Beijing fined Alibaba a record 18 billion yuan over anti-monopoly violations. The mainland recently launched a campaign, led by the PBOC and the Ministry of Public Security, to fight money laundering. (Reuters)