Jack Ma was right: Can't regulate an online lending platform like a bank

China's yearslong deleveraging campaign to weed out bad actors in its financial underbelly should be a lesson

Jack Ma was right: You can’t use rules for a railway station to run an airport. Or, regulate a cutting-edge online lending platform like a traditional bank.

Chinese authorities effectively took the founder of e-commerce behemoth Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. to task for such views by suspending the $35 billion initial public offering of its fintech offspring, Ant Group Co., just before the scheduled launch. The move follows the release of new draft regulations on increasingly popular online consumer lending that will squeeze profits and raise the cost of compliance for fintech pioneers.

The measures essentially put the up-and-comers on