Earlier reports of e-commerce leader Alibaba’s strong political ties appear to be overstated, following word that archrival Tencent (HKEx: 700) has become the first of China’s major Internet firms to win a highly sought banking license. Both companies had been aggressively expanding into financial services over the past year, though each was reliant on partnerships with other companies that already had licenses to offer services in the highly regulated sector dominated by big state-run companies. But now Tencent will be able to offer many of those services on its own, following this ground-breaking award of a license from the nation’s banking regulator. Read Full Post…
