(Yicai Global) Aug. 3 -- Ant Group’s Chief Technology Officer has been made chairman of the Chinese fintech giant’s mobile wallet Alipay.

Ni Xingjun succeeded Jing Xiandong as Alipay’s chairman and legal representative on Aug. 1, according to the National Enterprise Credit Information Publicity System. Alipay is also changing its general manager.

This is normal corporate governance, said Hangzhou-based Alipay, which was one of the first third-party payment platforms in China to obtain a business license.

Ni has been with Alipay since it started in 2004. He is a core member of the founding team, designer of many generations of the technical architecture and developer of early versions of the software. He rose to the rank of CTO in August 2020. Ni has also been executive director of Ant since July 2020.

Jing joined e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding in 2007 where he was mainly responsible for finance and operations. In 2014, he became Chief Operation Officer and President of Alipay, after the establishment of Ant Financial Services, and was promoted to Chief Executive Officer in 2016.

Editors: Shi Yi, Kim Taylor