ByteDance, owner of short video app TikTok, has announced plans to downsize its financial services operations amid Beijing’s ongoing campaign to “prevent the irrational expansion of capital,” reports the South China Morning Post.
“The company is scaling back its finance-related business and plans to sell the securities brokerage operation,” a ByteDance representative said in a statement on Thursday. The Beijing-based tech giant did not name the business unit it intends to divest and provided no data about its financial services business.
ByteDance, which also runs news aggregator Jinri Toutiao and Chinese short video app Douyin, made its foray into financial services with the launch of its “Dolphin Stock” app in 2017. This app “intelligently tracks the market, provides fast information and performance analysis,” according to its website.