A Chinese Alternative to Bloomberg Terminals Quietly Limits Information Overseas

Software made by Wind Information, a private Shanghai-based company, is widespread in mainland China and popular with financial analysts, investors and economists overseas. But as the Chinese government takes a series of steps to clamp down on information-gathering by foreign firms, investors and analysts outside the country say they have been cut off from some of Wind’s services—including data that has long been considered public.

Subscribers to Wind in Hong Kong and other cities outside mainland China were cut off in recent months from data on online retail shopping trends, and satellite images showing the lighting of different cities both inside and outside of China, a gauge of energy consumption. They were also blocked from accessing land auction records before this week. The land sales records were made available again after The Wall Street Journal asked Wind for comment.

When overseas subscribers—including the Journal—try to access the restricted data, they get a message saying it is unavailable in their location, “according to relevant laws and regulations," or asking them to fill in a form declaring why they want to access the data and pledging that it is for personal use only. Subscribers who fill in this form would be told their request needs to be reviewed by Wind, but bankers and investors said they were reluctant to sign something that could commit their firm to further conditions of use.

A Wind spokesperson said the company is legally obligated “to understand the purpose of the overseas data receiver’s use of such data."

The restricted data is still available to those in mainland China, according to Wind users in the country.

Wind’s move to reduce access to data has come alongside stronger limits on some of its foreign subscribers. After recent changes to China’s anti-espionage law—which followed a data-security law passed last year that gave the government more oversight of cross-border data transfers—many foreign think tanks and other research firms found they were unable to renew their Wind subscriptions, the Journal previously reported.

Bankers, investors and financial analysts said they have not had trouble subscribing to Wind and the most of data provided by the company is still accessible to all of its subscribers. But some analysts and investors say the move to reduce their access even to limited amounts of data could crimp their ability to model the overall health of China’s economy as well as the strength of particular sectors.

“Now the puzzle is missing a piece, and it is not easy to find a replacement," said Gary Ng, a Hong Kong-based senior economist at French bank Natixis, who uses Wind frequently.

Economists and analysts have long raised questions about the accuracy of official economic data in China, making independent data providers—which sometimes show more detailed data that can be used to cross-check official numbers—essential for researchers.

In an emailed statement to the Journal, Wind said it wasn’t true that many foreign think tanks, research firms and other institutions have been unable to renew their subscriptions. It said that making changes to the economic indicators users can access is standard practice for global data companies, and that the proportion of the economic indicators it displayed that have been pulled or adjusted aligns with its global peers.

Beijing is increasingly clamping down on information-gathering by foreign companies. Chinese authorities raided the Beijing office of New York-based due diligence firm Mintz Group in March, leading to the detention of five Chinese nationals who worked for the company. In April, employees in the Shanghai office of U.S. consulting firm Bain & Co. were questioned. Earlier this month, consulting firm Capvision, which was founded in China but is now partly based in the U.S., was also raided by police. The raid was broadcast on a state-owned television channel.

Foreign companies and investors with an interest in China, eager for information to guide their business decisions, are now unsure of what sort of information they are allowed to use.

Wind operates a similar model to Bloomberg and FactSet, two data providers used by many Western banks and securities firms. The company is described by many bankers inside and outside the country as a local alternative to the Bloomberg terminal.

Wind hasn’t disclosed its subscriber numbers or said what percentage of them are outside mainland China. Chinese banks, securities brokerages and regulators including the People’s Bank of China and China Securities Regulatory Commission are among its subscribers, according to public records. It is also used outside of mainland China by institutional investors, research institutions and media companies, according to its website.

Wind said that its international operation is still a small part of the overall business, but it has been growing at a faster pace, especially over the last five years.

The company added that the product it offers to customers in mainland China is different from the one sold to international users. This includes some services being offered outside of mainland China only, including price quotes for digital currencies. China’s government banned cryptocurrency trading in 2021.

Those outside mainland China who subscribe to Wind pay $1,200 a month for the first user, but the price for additional users goes down after that, the company said. It added that subscribers in mainland China who want access to overseas services pay the equivalent of around $840 a month.

Wind aggregates official data from local finance bureaus, housing departments and statistics bureaus as well as buying third-party data from private companies. It has signed agreements with exchanges, index companies, brokerages, overseas financial market data providers such as Tullett Prebon Information and Chinese government-run clearinghouses such as China Central Depository & Clearing.

In the quarter-century since the company was founded, China’s stock and bond markets have grown exponentially—becoming bigger than those of any other country besides the U.S. By May 25, the market capitalization of stocks listed in mainland China was around $11.7 trillion, while the face value of outstanding yuan-denominated bonds was the equivalent of $20.6 trillion.

In March 2019, Li Qiang, China’s current premier and previous party chief of the city of Shanghai, visited Wind’s office. He gave encouragement to the firm’s employees, telling them to hold themselves to international standards.

Tianlei Huang, a research fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington, D.C., said the loss of access to some data on Wind raises wider questions, even for those analysts who can find an alternative source of the lost data.

“Since it’s a legal issue from the Chinese government’s perspective, even if we manage to get the data from elsewhere, is it OK for us to use it?" Huang said.

Write to Rebecca Feng at rebecca.feng@wsj.com