On-the-Ground Coverage of the Performance Meeting | Development Goals, Strategic Reforms, Dividends... Ping An Bank's "2025 Annual Performance Release Conference" focuses on these issues

Every Reporter｜Pan Ting Every Editor｜Dong Xingsheng

On March 23, Ping An Bank (000001.SZ, stock price 10.45 yuan, market value 202.8 billion yuan) held its “2025 Annual Performance Release Conference.” Ping An Bank President Ji Guangheng, Chief Financial Officer Xiang Youzhi, Chief Compliance Officer Wu Leiming, Vice President Fang Weihai, President Assistant Wang Jun, and Board Secretary Zhou Qiang explained the hot issues of concern to the market.

Ji Guangheng pointed out in his opening speech that 2025 will be an extraordinary year. The external environment remains complex and severe, and domestic development faces many challenges. China’s economy demonstrates strong resilience, with stable progress in economic operation and overall development moving towards new and improved directions. This year, Ping An Bank has gone through the difficulties of transformation and withstood operational pressures, laying a solid foundation for future high-quality development with a more pragmatic approach and steadier pace.

Talking about development goals: Striving to achieve the business goal of returning to growth

Ji Guangheng noted that from an industry perspective, the banking sector has entered a cycle of low interest rates, low spreads, and low returns, facing challenges such as insufficient effective credit demand, pressure on risk prevention, and narrowing profit margins. However, thanks to the coordinated development of macro policies, steady development of new productive forces, continuous expansion of emerging markets, economic growth, and optimized driving forces, along with deepening digital transformation and artificial intelligence, the operating model and service ecology of the financial industry have been comprehensively reshaped, injecting strong momentum into transformation.

“2025 will be a challenging year for Ping An Bank, but it will also be a year to lay a more solid foundation for future development.” Ji Guangheng frankly stated, “In 2026, we will strive to achieve the business goal of returning to growth.”

It is understood that Ping An Bank will address some outstanding issues and, in combination with industry characteristics and its own features, form new growth momentum.

“In 2025, Ping An Bank’s business operations will have highlights,” Ji Guangheng pointed out. First, the optimization of asset structure is underway, with retail income gradually increasing, and corporate general loans maintaining high growth, enhancing support for the real economy; total assets increased by 2.7% compared to the end of the previous year, and the balance of corporate loans increased by 3.5% compared to the end of the previous year, with good growth in loans to technology enterprises and green finance; second, the level of refined management continues to improve, actively optimizing interest payment costs, with a general deposit interest rate of 1.65%, down 42 basis points year-on-year; third, asset quality continues to improve, with good risk resistance; fourth, capital management is more refined, adhering to both internal accumulation and external supplementation, solidifying the foundation for sustainable development.

According to the annual report, in 2025, Ping An Bank’s operating income and net profit attributable to shareholders decreased by 10.4% and 4.2% year-on-year, respectively. Among them, the decline in operating income narrowed by 0.5 percentage points year-on-year, and the decline in net profit remained flat year-on-year.

Talking about strategic reform: Upholding strategic determination, it is not possible to innovate every year

“This year, at the internal working meeting of the whole bank, we proposed to uphold strategic determination; it is not possible to innovate every year, but instead, we should persistently lay a solid foundation and manage operations well, often summarizing what we did right and what areas need improvement,” Ji Guangheng pointed out. In terms of strategy, over the past two and a half years of strategic reform, Ping An Bank has accurately grasped the macroeconomic direction and timely adjusted its strategies. Based on the strategy of strengthening retail, refining corporate business, and specializing in interbank operations, the entire bank has unified its thinking, focusing on business, performance management, and internal management to achieve a breakthrough and rebuilding in retail business.

Specifically, in various business and management areas, first, the bottoming out of retail business is basically complete, with dawn beginning to show. By the end of 2025, Ping An Bank had 127.8963 million retail customers, an increase of 1.9% compared to the end of the previous year, managing retail customer assets (AUM) of 4.238409 trillion yuan, an increase of 1.1% compared to the end of the previous year.

Second, the corporate business is developing in synergy and maintaining integrity while making adjustments. By the end of 2025, the balance of corporate deposits was 2.295255 trillion yuan, an increase of 2.2% compared to the end of the previous year; the balance of corporate loans was 1.663546 trillion yuan, an increase of 3.5% compared to the end of the previous year.

Third, the intensity of asset quality management continues to strengthen, effectively advancing the reconstruction of the risk management system and enhancing the independence of risk management. The high-risk assets in retail have been basically cleared, corporate asset quality remains in good condition, efforts to recover non-performing loans continue to increase, and the cost of credit risk has significantly decreased, with the industry’s collaborative mechanism continuously upgraded.

Fourth, comprehensive efforts to strengthen refined management, improve quality and efficiency, continuously optimize operating costs to support strategic and key business investments, reduce fixed and daily operational expenditures, and enhance the overall accounting level of branches and headquarters.

Talking about dividends: Striving to create more value for investors

Ping An Bank’s 2025 profit distribution plan shows that it intends to distribute 5.96 yuan for every 10 shares, totaling cash dividends of 11.566 billion yuan.

Regarding the reason for the total cash dividend being less than 30% of the year’s net profit, Ping An Bank explained that it is mainly due to comprehensive consideration of industry development challenges and its own operational development needs. On one hand, commercial banks currently face challenges such as narrowing interest spreads and insufficient effective credit demand, and strengthening internal capital accumulation helps enhance risk resistance; on the other hand, regulators have raised higher requirements for the capital adequacy levels of commercial banks. By the end of 2025, the group’s core Tier 1 capital adequacy ratio was 9.36%, and capital reserves are needed to adapt to regulatory reforms. Additionally, to ensure steady business development, deepening strategic transformation and enhancing the ability to serve the real economy also require ample capital support.

Ping An Bank stated that this profit distribution plan complies with the company’s articles of association and shareholder return plans, fully taking into account industry characteristics, development stages, profit levels, and overall shareholder returns, and the retained undistributed profits will be used to strengthen capital accumulation, support business development, and implement strategies. In the future, the bank will adhere to the strategic guidelines of “strengthening retail, refining corporate business, and specializing in interbank operations,” enhance risk management, promote high-quality and sustainable business development, and continuously create investment returns for shareholders.

Regarding dividends, Ji Guangheng stated that Ping An Bank has always placed a high value on shareholder interests, and this year it still plans to maintain a reasonable dividend ratio, striving to create more value for investors.

Talking about real estate risks: Trends are improving

Ping An Bank disclosed real estate risk management data in its 2025 annual report. By the end of 2025, the balance of credit-related businesses that bear credit risks related to real estate, including actual and contingent credit, self-owned bond investments, and self-owned non-standard investments, totaled 251.357 billion yuan, a decrease of 21.980 billion yuan compared to the end of the previous year; the balance of businesses that do not bear credit risks, including investment from wealth management funds, entrusted loans, trust and fund management by cooperative institutions, and underwritten debt financing instruments, totaled 70.361 billion yuan, a decrease of 5.518 billion yuan compared to the end of the previous year.

“From the perspective of corporate real estate risks, both overdue and newly added non-performing loans decreased last year,” Wu Leiming stated at the meeting, adding that this year’s trend is also improving.