Following a recent adjustment in the leadership of the corporate banking division at the head office, changes are also imminent for the person in charge of the retail division at CITIC BANK.
It has been learned that CITIC BANK's Vice President, Xie Zhibin, is slated to concurrently assume the role of head of the Head Office Retail Finance Department. Meanwhile, the current General Manager of the Retail Department is proposed to be transferred to become the General Manager of the Private Banking Department.
Vice President Xie Zhibin, born in May 1969, holds a Ph.D. in Economics from Renmin University of China and is a senior economist. His career includes roles such as Assistant General Manager, Deputy General Manager, and General Manager of the Human Resources Department at China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation, as well as Party Committee Secretary of its Shenzhen branch and Party Committee Secretary and General Manager of its Hebei branch. He also served as a member of the Party Committee and Secretary of the Discipline Inspection Commission at China Everbright Group. He has been serving as Vice President of CITIC BANK since June 2019 and additionally assumed the role of Chairman of CITIC Baixin Bank in August 2025.
The current General Manager of the Head Office Retail Finance Department (Consumer Rights Protection Office), Zhao Tongwei, is proposed to become the General Manager of the Head Office Private Banking Department. She currently also serves as a director of CITIC Wealth Management and a director of CITIC Baixin Bank.
Zhao Tongwei previously worked at Beijing Koden Hardware Enterprise Co., Ltd., China Everbright Bank Co., Ltd., and Standard Chartered Bank (China) Limited. She joined CITIC BANK in August 2008, holding positions including head and general manager of the VIP Wealth Management Department within the Retail Banking Department, Assistant General Manager, Deputy General Manager, and Executive Deputy General Manager of the Retail Banking Department. She succeeded Lu Tiangui as General Manager of the Retail Banking Department (Consumer Rights Protection Office) in 2020.
In 2021, CITIC BANK restructured its head office retail finance segment, establishing a new Wealth Management Department. Some teams and functions from the former Retail Banking Department and Digital Finance Department were merged into this new department. The former Retail Banking Department was renamed the Retail Finance Department (Consumer Rights Protection Office), responsible for the overall planning and coordination of retail business, with Zhao Tongwei continuing as its General Manager.
This period coincided with CITIC BANK's push for its "retail-first" strategy. Then Vice President Lu Tiangui stated at the 2021 results briefing that the bank aimed to use wealth management as a pillar and leverage "segment integration, corporate linkage, and group synergy" to achieve a "pole vault" for its retail business, using this vivid metaphor to express confidence in retail development.
However, four years on, the retail business of CITIC BANK has not grown as expected. With weak retail credit demand, it is not easy for banks to expand their retail scale. At the beginning-of-year 2025 results briefing, CITIC BANK Chairman Fang Heying outlined the overall development framework of "corporate banking shouldering the major responsibility, retail banking providing stable contribution, financial markets increasing revenue, and risk control creating value."
In 2025, CITIC BANK's overall performance remained stable, achieving a net profit attributable to shareholders of 70.618 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.98%. Its corporate banking and financial markets businesses both maintained positive growth, while only the retail segment declined.
Specifically, in 2025, the retail business of CITIC BANK achieved operating revenue of 79.367 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 7.37%, with its revenue contribution ratio dropping to 37.3%. Pre-tax profit was 5.303 billion yuan, a significant decrease of 42.55% from the previous year's 9.23 billion yuan. Although retail assets accounted for 23.2% of the bank's total, their profit contribution had fallen to 6.3%.
At the 2025 annual results briefing, CITIC BANK explained that "retail banking providing stable contribution" does not mean lowering its status, but rather entrusting it with the responsibility to overcome difficulties. "We must calmly observe the changing trends of cyclical credit risk and value impairment, leverage the strong momentum of the rapidly expanding wealth management market, ride the rising trend of the established retail development system and capabilities, and, crucially, plan for the major trend of retail business development."
On another note, Vice President Xie Zhibin reported that in 2025, the wealth management business of CITIC BANK delivered a high-quality performance, with scale reaching a record high, structure continuously optimizing, and profitability steadily growing.
As of the end of 2025, the retail assets under management balance (including market value) at CITIC BANK reached 5.36 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.29%. The balance has ranked second among comparable peers for five consecutive years, making it one of only two joint-stock banks to achieve positive market share growth over the past five years. As of the end of the first quarter of 2026, the AUM at CITIC BANK reached 5.50 trillion yuan, an increase of 2.60% from the end of the previous year.
Regarding private banking, CITIC BANK upgraded its tiered client management system for private banking clients, focusing on account-based allocation, intensive operations, and full-chain enhancement. The retention rate for private banking clients under intensive operations continued to improve. (CITIC Private Banking clients refer to individual clients with a monthly average balance of managed assets reaching 6 million yuan or more.)
As of the end of 2025, the number of private banking clients at CITIC BANK reached 96,600, an increase of 14.93% from the end of the previous year. The monthly average balance of managed assets for private banking clients was 1.36 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 16.02%. In the first quarter of 2026, CITIC BANK deepened its tiered client management system, strengthening operations within and chain-based referrals across the "mass-affluent-premium-private banking" wealth client segments. The number of private banking clients surpassed the new milestone of 100,000.
Overall, as of the end of the first quarter, the balance of personal loans (excluding credit cards) at CITIC BANK was 1,891.184 billion yuan, a decrease of 0.66% from the end of the previous year. The balance of credit card loans was 451.417 billion yuan, a decrease of 2.52% from the end of the previous year.
Amid ongoing pressure on the retail business, veteran Lu Tiangui officially assumed the role of President of CITIC BANK in June this year. How to address the shortcomings in the retail segment will be a challenge for the management team to tackle collectively.
It is reported that further changes in the senior management of CITIC BANK are expected in the near term.
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