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Many commentators in China are extremely excited about the launch of WeBank, and are all-too-ready to discuss how its creation could help transform the country’s banking sector.
Getting anyone at WeBank itself to talk about its potential is a much tougher task. Tencent, the Chinese internet giant that is its most illustrious shareholder, is famously secretive, despite being listed in Hong Kong, and rarely grants interviews to either domestic or international media.
Tencent’s wiry founder-chairman Pony Ma is bespectacled and publicity-shy, expressionless and pale, in many ways the embodiment of that western idea of Chinese inscrutability.
Requests for an interview with WeBank were at first politely rebuffed by Tencent; later entreaties were simply ignored.
“Good luck getting an interview with them,” counseled a well-credentialled Hong Kong financial analyst. “If you can get your foot in the door, please let me know how.”
Never one to shirk a challenge, Euromoney ventured across the border from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, then across town to Tencent’s main headquarters on Kejizhongyi Avenue, in the city’s high-tech Nanshan District.
The analyst’s words at first appeared ominously on the money.
