Bank of Communications, a major state-owned bank with assets exceeding 15 trillion yuan, has issued a correction notice addressing a significant error in its 2025 annual report regarding annual dividend disclosures. The mistake was discovered four days after the report's initial release. On the evening of March 27, Bank of Communications published its 2025 annual report, but it was only today that a major inaccuracy in the profit distribution announcement was identified. According to the correction notice, the statement "Bank of Communications will distribute a cash dividend of 3.247 yuan per share for the full year of 2025" has been amended to "a cash dividend of 3.247 yuan per every 10 shares for the full year of 2025."
As of the end of 2025, Bank of Communications had a total of 88.364 billion ordinary shares outstanding. If the dividend were distributed at 3.247 yuan per share, the total payout would have been 286.918 billion yuan. However, under the corrected rate of 3.247 yuan per every 10 shares, the total dividend amounts to 28.692 billion yuan, resulting in a discrepancy of approximately 258.226 billion yuan. Bank of Communications attributed the error to "insufficient proofreading."
It is widely known that the company secretary is the primary person responsible for the disclosure and review of a listed company's annual report. Particularly for a bank, which deals with financial figures daily, such a significant error in the crucial annual report disclosure is highly unexpected. Two years ago, Bank of Hangzhou made a similar mistake in its 2023 profit distribution plan announcement, incorrectly stating "a dividend of 5.20 yuan per share" instead of "a dividend of 5.20 yuan per every 10 shares." The bank quickly issued a correction, blaming the error on "staff negligence." Shortly after the incident, Mao Xiahong, then vice president and company secretary of Bank of Hangzhou, resigned voluntarily. This has led to external concerns about the future of He Zhaobin, the current company secretary of Bank of Communications.
According to disclosures by Bank of Communications, in compliance with Hong Kong listing rules, He Zhaobin, the company secretary, completed over 15 hours of professional training in 2025. He received a "5A" rating in the 2025 Listed Company Secretary Performance Evaluation and was honored as an "Outstanding Company Secretary." It is also reported that He Zhaobin began serving as company secretary of Bank of Communications in June 2023 and is currently 57 years old. He obtained a Master's degree in Public Administration from Peking University and the National School of Administration in 2007 and previously held positions including Deputy Director of the National Agricultural Comprehensive Development Office, Deputy Director of the State Council's Comprehensive Rural Reform Working Group Office, and Deputy Director of the Ministry of Finance's Supervision and Inspection Bureau.
The 2025 annual report of Bank of Communications also disclosed that He Zhaobin received a base salary of 603,700 yuan last year, with social security, housing fund, and supplementary insurance totaling 274,300 yuan, bringing his total annual compensation to 878,000 yuan. He also holds 96,700 A-shares of Bank of Communications. In 2025, Bank of Communications achieved operating revenue of 265.071 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.02%. Net profit attributable to shareholders reached 95.622 billion yuan, up 2.18% from the previous year. By the end of 2025, the bank's total assets exceeded 15.5 trillion yuan, an increase of 4.35% from the end of the prior year. The non-performing loan ratio stood at 1.28%, down 0.03 percentage points from the end of the previous year, while the provision coverage ratio rose to 208.38%.
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