After a vacancy lasting five months, CITIC Bank is poised to welcome a new president.
On May 19, it was learned that Lü Tiangui, Chairman of CITIC Trust, has returned to CITIC Bank and assumed the role of Deputy Party Secretary. Following standard procedures, Lü Tiangui is expected to be appointed as the president of this joint-stock bank, which boasts assets exceeding ten trillion yuan.
Public information shows that Lü Tiangui, born in the 1970s, joined CITIC Bank in 2003 and served for over twenty years. During his tenure, he held several key positions, including President of the Credit Card Center, Business Director at the head office, and Vice President. In March 2025, Lü Tiangui temporarily left the banking sector due to a work adjustment and was appointed Chairman of CITIC Trust.
CITIC Bank is one of China's leading joint-stock banks. In 2025, its total assets surpassed the 10 trillion yuan mark for the first time. As of the end of the first quarter of this year, CITIC Bank's total assets reached 10.24 trillion yuan, an increase of 1.09% from the end of the previous year. In the first quarter, the bank achieved operating revenue of 54.649 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.23%, and net profit attributable to the parent company of 20.098 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 3.02%. According to Wind data, in terms of the growth rates of operating revenue and net profit attributable to the parent company, CITIC Bank ranked second among the nine A-share listed joint-stock banks.
From trust to banking, another seasoned '70s-born executive returns.
Previously, the president of CITIC Bank was Lu Wei, who was transferred to Postal Savings Bank of China as its president in December last year. It is worth noting that the career path of the newly appointed Lü Tiangui is similar to that of Lu Wei. Both were promoted from Vice President of CITIC Bank to become the head of CITIC Trust before returning to the head office to serve as president.
Lü Tiangui is a veteran banker. Born in 1972, he graduated from Sichuan University with a major in Business Administration. He began his career at the Jilin Branch of Bank of China and joined CITIC Bank in 2003. From January 2003 to May 2014, he worked in the bank's Credit Card Center, holding positions such as Deputy General Manager of the Finance and Legal Department, General Manager of the Operations Department, General Manager of the Customer Service Department, and Assistant President, Party Committee Member, and Vice President of the Credit Card Center.
In May 2014, Lü Tiangui became the Party Secretary of CITIC Bank's Credit Card Center and was appointed President of the Credit Card Center in November of the same year. In August 2018, he assumed the role of Business Director at CITIC Bank.
In November 2020, Lü Tiangui was appointed Vice President of CITIC Bank. At that time, Lu Wei was also promoted from Business Director to Vice President alongside him. Their ages are close, with Lu Wei, born in 1971, being one year older than Lü Tiangui. During his tenure as Vice President, Lü Tiangui was primarily responsible for the retail business line and frequently addressed questions related to the bank's retail transformation at performance meetings.
In March 2025, Lü Tiangui resigned from his position as Vice President of CITIC Bank due to a work adjustment. In May of the same year, he was elected Chairman of CITIC Trust. At that time, Lu Wei had already returned from CITIC Trust to CITIC Bank to serve as president.
During Lü Tiangui's tenure, CITIC Trust achieved strong performance growth. According to CITIC Trust's disclosed 2025 annual report, the company achieved total operating revenue of 6.326 billion yuan in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 17.61%. This included net fee and commission income of 2.379 billion yuan. Net profit attributable to the parent company was 3.052 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 15.03%. As of the end of 2025, CITIC Trust's trust asset balance was 3.7939 trillion yuan. In 2025, the company added 3,441 new trust projects, with trust funds received totaling 4.2782 trillion yuan.
After Lü Tiangui returns to CITIC Bank as president, the bank's management team will form a structure of one president and six vice presidents. Among them, including Lü Tiangui, three senior executives are also from the '70s generation: Gu Lingyun, Jin Xinian, and Zhao Yuanxin. Zhao Yuanxin is a newly appointed vice president of CITIC Bank this year, whose appointment qualification was recently approved by regulatory authorities.
Retail business growth at listed banks faces overall pressure.
According to the "Review and Future Outlook of China's Listed Banks in 2025" recently released by EY, due to the combined impact of a slowdown in overall retail credit deployment, narrowing interest margins, and increasing pressure on credit risk management, the growth momentum of retail business at listed banks continues to weaken. In 2025, the operating revenue and pre-tax profit of the retail business of listed banks still showed a double decline, falling by 2.51% and 3.92% respectively compared to 2024.
In 2022, CITIC Bank first introduced the concept of "New Retail" in its annual report, proposing to build a new retail system centered on wealth management, comprehensively improve the profit contribution of the retail business, and initiate the second growth curve for CITIC Bank's new retail.
In a signed article published in 2022, Lü Tiangui stated that CITIC Bank clearly focuses on customers and aims to build a "wealth management-asset management-comprehensive financing" value chain with wealth management as the core. Wealth management capability driven by customer demand depends on the support of asset management investment capability and the supply of underlying assets from comprehensive financing. Strong wealth management forms a rapid fund mobilization capability, which can promote the acquisition of quality assets and the enhancement of asset management capability. This is the historical position and new coordinates for the development of CITIC Bank's "New Retail."
In August 2024, Lü Tiangui, then Vice President of CITIC Bank, attended the bank's performance briefing and stated that in terms of market share, the bank's retail managed assets and retail credit balance had stabilized at second place among peers. The market share of retail managed assets, personal loans, and credit card loan balances also continued to increase. He also acknowledged that intensified competition for existing customers, narrowing interest spreads and declining fee rates, and pressure on asset quality were the main challenges facing the bank.
Data shows that since 2022, the pre-tax profit of CITIC Bank's retail banking business has declined for four consecutive years.
From 2021 to 2024, the pre-tax profit of CITIC Bank's retail banking business was 22.704 billion yuan, 17.380 billion yuan, 15.935 billion yuan, and 9.230 billion yuan, respectively. In 2025, the operating revenue of the bank's retail banking business was 79.367 billion yuan, accounting for 37.3% of total operating revenue. The pre-tax profit was 5.303 billion yuan, a decrease of 42.55% year-on-year. Its proportion of total profit dropped from 34.6% in 2021 to 6.3% in 2025.
"Corporate banking shoulders the major responsibility, retail banking provides stable contribution, financial markets increase income, and risk control creates value. This is the general development pattern for us," said Fang Heying, Chairman of CITIC Bank, at the bank's 2025 annual performance meeting in March this year. He added that a stable contribution from retail does not mean lowering its status but rather entrusting it with the responsibility to overcome difficulties. CITIC Bank's emphasis on the development of its retail business remains unchanged.
For CITIC Bank, against the backdrop of overall industry pressure on retail growth, whether it can leverage this personnel adjustment to activate the growth potential of its retail business has become a key focus for subsequent industry observation.
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