SHANGHAI — As Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba expands beyond online retail, it is shaking up staid state banks — and drawing regulators’ attention — after 100-million customers poured more than $90bn into its investment product.Alibaba, preparing for a multibillion-dollar stock offer on the New York Stock Exchange that could rival Facebook’s flotation, has already transformed the retail and logistics sectors in China.Now its founder, Jack Ma, is seeking to remodel banking in a bold move that challenges one of the pillars of the Communist Party’s control of the economy.China’s banking sector is dominated by four state-owned banks, long criticised for high charges, poor service and favouring loans to big state firms over small private companies. "The financial sector needs a disrupter," Mr Ma said last year. He has also said: "If banks don’t change, we will make them change."Since last June users of Alibaba’s online payments platform Alipay — China’s equivalent of PayPal — have been ...
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