Revenue "turns positive": How does China Merchants Bank "stabilize" its retail ballast?

reporter Qin Yufang Guangzhou

On March 30, China Merchants Bank held its 2025 performance results briefing. At the meeting, the management of China Merchants Bank said that in recent years, China Merchants Bank’s revenue growth has faced significant pressure. In 2025, it achieved a 0.01% positive revenue growth—its first time achieving positive growth since revenue declined in 2023 and 2024. Although revenue and profit growth are still under pressure, based on the favorable trend in 2025, China Merchants Bank will take active steps to achieve steady improvement in both revenue and profit.

Revenue achieved positive growth

In recent years, China Merchants Bank’s revenue growth has faced significant pressure. In 2025, it achieved a 0.01% positive revenue growth.

According to the annual report, in 2025 China Merchants Bank achieved operating revenue of RMB 337.532 billion, up 0.01%; net profit attributable to shareholders of the Bank was RMB 150.181 billion, up 1.21%. This is also the first time it has achieved positive growth since declines of 1.46% in 2023 and 0.48% in 2024.

China Merchants Bank President and CEO Wang Liang said that in the past, China Merchants Bank’s strength was its retail banking business, but in recent years, retail banking has been hit hardest by external policy and market changes, leading to significant revenue growth pressure in recent years. “We coordinate with other customer business segments to promote retail business, filling the gap. In 2025, we finally achieved positive growth.”

From the perspective of the revenue structure, in 2025 China Merchants Bank’s net interest income reached RMB 215.593 billion, up 2.04%. In addition, its non-interest net income accounted for 36.13%, higher than the industry average of 22.53% disclosed by the regulatory authorities.

Regarding non-interest income, Wang Liang said that in 2025, its wealth management in particular, especially retail wealth management, grew rapidly, offsetting the gaps from other comprehensive income and growth in other regions.

Based on annual report data, in 2025 China Merchants Bank’s net fee and commission income increased year over year by 4.39% to RMB 75.258 billion; income from wealth management for the large wealth segment was RMB 44.013 billion, up 16.91%.

Of note is that the growth rate of China Merchants Bank’s fee and commission income turned positive for the first time since 2022. In addition, fee and commission income from the asset management business was RMB 11.927 billion, up 10.94%. Fee and commission income from custody business was RMB 5.375 billion, up 9.90%.

China Merchants Bank believes that behind the return of operating income to growth are two dual supports: a narrowing year-over-year decline in the net interest margin and growth in fee income. The annual report shows that the bank’s net interest margin was 1.87%, significantly better than the industry average of 1.42% disclosed by the regulatory authorities, and the decline narrowed markedly compared with the same period.

China Merchants Bank Chairman Miao Jianmin said that regardless of whether the downcycle is still ongoing in the future, the marginal outlook is positive.

Retail customer asset scale breaks through 17 trillion yuan

Behind China Merchants Bank’s achievement of positive revenue growth, the deep transformation and structural optimization of its retail business have played an important role. As China Merchants Bank’s long-term “stabilizer,” after experiencing external environmental shocks, its retail finance segment is demonstrating stronger resilience and growth momentum through deeper customer base cultivation, ecosystem coordination, and service upgrades.

From the perspective of the retail business structure, in recent years, although the retail business’s contribution to revenue and profit has not grown as rapidly as in the past, its structure has also undergone major changes.

Specifically, retail customers grew quickly. By the end of 2025, China Merchants Bank’s total number of retail customers reached 224 million households, up 6.67% from the end of the previous year. In particular, the growth rate of high-value customers was faster: 5.9315 million customers in Jin Kui Xing and above categories, up 13.29% from the end of 2024. At the same time, AUM achieved rapid growth. By the end of 2025, the ending balance of managed assets of retail customers (AUM) was RMB 17.08 trillion, up 14.44% from the end of 2024, reaching a historic high. In addition, China Merchants Bank’s share in the retail credit market continued to rise. By the end of 2025, its retail loan balance was RMB 365.4670 billion, up 2.15% from the end of the previous year.

Wang Liang said that in recent years, retail banking business has suffered significant shocks, but the bank has achieved good results through transformation and upgrading and diversified development.

Worth noting is that proactively expanding AUM scale is becoming the foundational layout for retail transformation and diversified coordination for many banks. In Yu Fenghui, a senior researcher at Pango Think Tank, her view is that growth in the scale of retail customers has strategic significance for banks; it is a key measure to address current challenges and achieve long-term development. “Banks generally pay attention to growth in the scale of retail customers, which directly reflects the trend of bank business models shifting from traditional dependence on interest spread income to diversified income structures.”

Luo Feipeng, a researcher at Postal Savings Bank of China, further analyzed that in the context of interest rate liberalization and financial disintermediation, growth in corporate business has slowed while risks are concentrated. Retail business has advantages such as strong anti-cyclicality, risk diversification, and low capital consumption. Customer scale is the foundation for AUM growth and also a prerequisite for cross-selling. By expanding the customer base, banks can dilute customer acquisition costs and enhance economies of scale. This also reflects a shift in operating philosophy from “product-centered” to “customer-centered,” building a sustainable profit model through customer value management across the full life cycle.

Wang Liang said that in the future, “we will not forget the original aspiration of retail business, and will continue to consolidate the systemized competitive advantages of retail banking.”

Wang Liang further emphasized that to consolidate the advantages of retail business, the bank will focus mainly on the following areas: first, expanding the scale of customer groups; second, improving the product lineup; third, upgrading service models by combining online and offline channels to enhance customer experience; fourth, building a friend-circle ecosystem and establishing good cooperation with institutions such as asset management, funds, trust, and insurance, selling high-quality asset management products through channels to create value for customers; and fifth, managing risks well.

“Through these efforts, the systemized capabilities of retail business will be comprehensively enhanced, and the share of revenue and profit will remain at 50%, playing the role of the stabilizer.” Wang Liang emphasized.

The head of China Merchants Bank’s retail business also emphasized that going forward, it will reduce retail credit risks and improve retail credit quality by optimizing the business structure, adhering to collateral-based lending as the main approach, raising admission standards (especially for consumer and small and micro loans), dynamically adjusting customer groups, and insisting on strategies such as “early warning, early exposure, early resolution, and early disposition.”

Digital and intelligent transformation accelerates comprehensively

China Merchants Bank continues to increase its investment in digital and intelligent development. The annual report shows that in 2025 China Merchants Bank’s investment in information technology was RMB 12.901 billion, reaching 4.31% of the company’s operating revenue.

Especially in AI capability building, China Merchants Bank is accelerating both the construction of AI infrastructure and the deployment of scenarios. At the infrastructure level, its constructed intelligent computing infrastructure saw daily average Tokens throughput grow 10.1 times compared with 2024, and 183 specialized models were deployed in specific application areas.

In terms of large-model R&D and scenario applications, Zhou Tianhong, Chief Information Officer of China Merchants Bank, said that it has been about three years since large-model technology was first developed; the time is not long, and the technology itself is still making rapid progress, but society’s transformation through it is still a process. From China Merchants Bank’s practice, the breadth and depth we are pursuing have been progressing quickly.

In 2025, large-model applications at China Merchants Bank have already played a fully effective role. Zhou Tianhong revealed that China Merchants Bank has comprehensively sorted 45 business areas and 3,400 major work projects, among which more than 1,500 are areas where large models can play a role. With technological progress, this number continues to change dynamically.

“Of course, in banking industry applications, large models still face challenges such as hallucinations. We are investing more effort to suppress hallucinations and build precise, reliable applications. In the past six months, we have made good progress in this regard, and this year we have set ambitious goals.” Zhou Tianhong said.

Zhou Tianhong believes that future differentiation in the banking industry will occur in two areas: one is operations, and the other is technology. In the area of operations, China Merchants Bank has already formed strong core competitiveness; the next step is to build a moat in the technology area. This way, even in responding to industry competition and the downcycle, CMB can still maintain long-term core competitiveness.

(Editor: Zhang Manyou Review: He Shasha Proofread: Zhai Jun)

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