Ping An Bank's Party Secretary and President Ji Guangheng stated at the bank's 2025 performance conference that while 2025 has been a challenging year, it has also been a period for strengthening the foundation. The bank's goal for 2026 is to return to positive growth. Ji Guangheng expressed his personal view that the strategic transformation initiated in the second half of 2023 is now over 70% complete. Assessing the situation by "looking at static indicators and dynamic trends," and synthesizing statements from multiple members of management, factors including but not limited to the bottoming out and recovery of key retail business operating metrics, the peaking and subsequent decline in corporate non-performing loan formation, and the narrowing decline and fundamental stabilization of the net interest margin, have laid a solid foundation for Ping An Bank to return to a path of profit growth in 2026. The question of "how to return to growth" undoubtedly became a recurring theme throughout the conference. Summarizing the leadership's comments reveals that within the remaining 30% of the transformation progress, some inflection points are gradually emerging, certain strategies are taking shape, and risk buffers are being constructed.
The retail inflection point is approaching, with a focus on five key areas this year. Ji Guangheng noted that 2025 was a very difficult year for Ping An Bank, but based on the operational performance in the second half, especially the fourth quarter, the effects of various reforms have begun to show. He highlighted several reform achievements, foremost among them being the cessation of the decline in the bank's retail loan scale starting from the second half of last year, alongside a significant improvement in retail asset quality. Wang Jun, Assistant President overseeing retail, elaborated on how these results were achieved. Wang Jun stated that through measures such as optimizing customer acquisition channels (enhancing proprietary channel capabilities), deepening customer segment management, enriching the product portfolio system, and increasing the proportion of high-quality business, the retail division has seen "multiple core indicators trending positively, with an inflection point gradually appearing." This assessment is based on, but not limited to, the following four aspects: First, the retail loan scale has stopped declining. By the end of 2025, Ping An Bank's retail loan balance decreased by 2.3% year-on-year, but the rate of decline narrowed by 8.3 percentage points. Looking at the sequential trend, the retail loan scale decreased by 41.2 billion yuan in the first half of 2025, but achieved positive growth of 1.3 billion yuan in the second half, essentially stabilizing. In terms of product structure, the bank's credit card installment and revolving credit assets stabilized; mortgage and auto financing balances maintained positive growth; the balances for Cheng e Loan and Cheng Ye Loan exceeded 30 billion yuan. Second, retail asset quality continues to improve. As of the end of 2025, the bank's non-performing loan ratio for personal loans was 1.23%, down 0.16 percentage points from the end of the previous year. Management emphasized that the retail NPL ratio has declined for five consecutive quarters, and both the NPL formation rate and amount have seen significant decreases for two consecutive years. This indicates that the peak of retail NPL formation has essentially passed, and this trend is continuing. Third, the structure of banking and asset management assets is optimizing. For the crucial deposit business, Ping An Bank is driving an increase in high-quality deposits: in 2025, the bank's average daily balance of personal deposits increased by 2.7% year-on-year, with the average daily balance of personal demand deposits rising by 12.9% year-on-year. While deposits grew steadily, the average interest rate paid on personal deposits decreased by 36 basis points. Concurrently, the contribution from wealth management revenue, represented by bancassurance fee income, continues to rise. In 2025, the bank's wealth management fee income reached 5.061 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.8%; within this, the bank's agency income from personal insurance was 1.292 billion yuan, surging 53.3% year-on-year. Fourth, the decline in retail business revenue has narrowed, with net profit showing restorative growth. In 2025, the retail business operating revenue of Ping An Bank decreased by 13.5% year-on-year, but the rate of decline narrowed by 12.4 percentage points compared to 2024, indicating a slowing downtrend. Meanwhile, strengthened risk control, optimized customer base structure, and a year-on-year decrease in credit impairment losses led to restorative growth in the retail business's net profit: rising significantly from 289 million yuan at the end of 2024 to 2.683 billion yuan. "Based on these four aspects, we judge that the inflection point for the retail business has basically arrived," Wang Jun stated. He also pointed out that in 2026, with the return to loan growth or the high-quality development of the broader wealth management business, retail revenue and profit will further improve.
Regarding how to ensure the "recovery" of the retail business, Wang Jun revealed the bank's key focus areas for the retail segment this year: First, customer management, by more actively integrating into Ping An Group's ecosystem scenarios, using precise customer segmentation and differentiated product benefits to help clients meet core needs like wealth management and health protection. Second, further optimizing the Pocket Bank App, emphasizing companion-style services for customers. Third, further rationalizing the loan structure, building on the cornerstone business, unleashing the capacity of medium-yield asset business, and simultaneously expanding the total volume of consumer loans. Fourth, in the broader wealth management sphere, adhering to the principle of high-quality AUM growth and continuously enhancing asset allocation capabilities for clients. Fifth, further strengthening team development, continuously improving the team's capabilities in customer acquisition, activation, and value enhancement.
While avoiding internal competition, the corporate business continues to provide support. During the past two years, while the retail business has been in the deep-water phase of transformation, actively reducing high-risk assets and adjusting credit allocation节奏, Ping An Bank's corporate business has consistently shouldered the main burden of loan growth. "Supplementing retail growth" has become a frequent term used to describe the corporate business in recent performance conferences, and this conference was no exception. By the end of 2025, the total principal amount of loans and advances issued by Ping An Bank was approximately 3.39 trillion yuan, a slight increase of 0.5% from the end of the previous year. As mentioned earlier, the bank's retail loan balance decreased by 2.3% year-on-year. This means that, similar to 2024, the expansion of Ping An Bank's loan assets in 2025 was primarily driven by the corporate business. Financial reports show that the corporate loan balance reached 1,663.546 billion yuan, an increase of 3.5% from the end of the previous year, accounting for 49.1% of the total. Furthermore, according to Fang Weihao, Vice President overseeing the corporate business, not only did general corporate loans grow by 9.2% last year, but low-yield bill acceptance was also reduced by approximately 130 billion yuan. On the liability side, through the development of low-cost funding sources and optimization of the deposit structure, the average interest rate paid on corporate deposits decreased significantly from 2.01% to 1.55% year-on-year, providing a cushion for the stabilization of the net interest margin. "Therefore, achieving these overall results, we believe represents some progress at this stage," Fang Weihao commented on the corporate business. One reason for Fang Weihao's relatively "restrained" wording might be that while Ping An Bank's corporate business achieved growth in "volume" and optimization in "price," there is room for improvement in the "risk" dimension last year. By the end of 2025, the non-performing loan ratio for corporate loans was 0.87%, an increase of 17 basis points from the start of the year, which was attributed to increased risks in some existing real estate business. The annual report shows that the bank's credit risk exposure related to real estate is mainly in corporate real estate loans, with a balance of 210.181 billion yuan, a decrease of 35.038 billion yuan from the end of the previous year. At the end of 2025, the NPL ratio for corporate real estate loans was 2.22%, up 0.43 percentage points from the end of the previous year.
Regarding this, Ping An Bank's Chief Compliance Officer Wu Leiming stated that the peak period for the formation of real estate risks has passed, and the overall exposure to real estate risks is in a stable zone. "On the corporate side, there was a somewhat concentrated outbreak in the first quarter of 2025; after the second quarter, both overdue and newly formed non-performing loans decreased, newly emerged risks were effectively controlled, and recovery efforts have shown significant results," Wu Leiming said. Xiang Youzhi, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, affirmed the effective "supplementary" role of the corporate business to retail and its potential driving effect on business growth this year. "Over the past two years, we have been accumulating strength on the asset side of the corporate business. Last year, the total number of corporate customers grew by 13.2%, which will provide a good foundation for business growth this year," Xiang Youzhi said. "The corporate business has regained vitality during its recent period of supplementary development. How we maintain the positive momentum of the corporate business, especially by continuing with the 'customer base + product' strategy, and doing so without internal competition, will require some adjustments going forward," Ji Guangheng stated frankly. It is worth noting that Ji Guangheng also specifically emphasized the issue of coordination between headquarters and branches. Of course, when discussing this issue, Ji Guangheng was referring to the bank's overall business segments, including both corporate and retail. According to Ji Guangheng, the top six branches within the Ping An Bank system account for approximately 60% of the bank's total revenue, indicating that mid-tier branches need significant development in recent years. "We are now focusing on having mid-tier branches in key regions, key branches, and key industries step up to address the issue of unbalanced development," Ji Guangheng said.
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