An article on the website of Economic Daily, an official Communist Party newspaper, praised the decision to suspend Ant’s share sale, calling it in the best interest of investors.
“Every market participant must respect and revere the rules — no exceptions,” the article said.
Besides Mr. Ma, the meeting on Monday with the regulatory agencies also included Ant’s executive chairman, Eric Jing, and its chief executive, Simon Hu. “Views regarding the health and stability of the financial sector were exchanged,” Ant said in a statement.
In another sign of the continuing scrutiny, the nation’s banking regulator, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, on Monday issued new draft rules for online microfinance businesses. Among them were higher capital requirements for loans and tighter controls on lending across provincial lines.
The Shanghai exchange’s suspension of the Ant I.P.O. appeared to take note of the draft rules, saying that recent changes in the regulatory environment had affected Ant significantly. Bai Chengyu, an executive at the China Association of Microfinance, said the new rules could cause the entire microfinance industry to shrink.
The famously outspoken Mr. Ma did not ingratiate himself with the authorities when he said, in a recent speech in Shanghai, that financial regulators’ excessive focus on containing risk could stifle innovation.
“We cannot manage an airport the way we managed a train station,” he said. “We cannot use yesterday’s methods to manage the future.”
The head of consumer protection at China’s banking regulator, Guo Wuping, slapped back on Monday, calling out two popular features in Alipay by name in a sharply critical article in 21st Century Business Herald, a government-owned newspaper.