Ping An Bank 2025: Structural Optimization and Operational Resilience Under 131.4 Billion Revenue

Adjusting-Period Resilience and Determination.

《Investor Network》 Zhang Jingyi

In 2025, it was a pivotal year for China’s banking industry as it continued to face sustained pressure amid the macroeconomic transition and strove to move forward toward “high-quality development.” The industry as a whole generally faced challenges such as narrowing net interest margins, intensified competition for existing customers, and a downward trend in return on assets.

Against this backdrop, the 2025 annual report released by Ping An Bank on March 21, 2026 is not only a set of financial results, but also a strategic answer submitted in its “final year of reform and breakthroughs.” Facing headwinds, Ping An Bank proactively adjusted and strengthened its internal capabilities. Its annual report sends clear signals of operations stabilizing and resilience strengthening, providing a valuable reference for observing how joint-stock banks can navigate through the economic cycle.

Performance Review: Displaying Resilience Under Pressure, With Asset Quality Building the Core Safety Cushion

From key financial indicators, in 2025 Ping An Bank achieved operating income of 1,314.42 billion yuan, down 10.4% year over year; net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company was 426.33 billion yuan, down 4.2% year over year. This set of results directly reflects industry-wide shared challenges: on the one hand, driven by factors such as the LPR cut and the repricing of existing mortgages, the yield on interest-earning assets generally declined; on the other hand, volatility in the capital markets also dealt a significant blow to non-interest income, which is mainly composed of investment income. In 2025, the industry’s overall net interest margin had already fallen to 1.42%, while Ping An Bank’s net interest margin was 1.78%. Although it decreased year over year, it still remained significantly higher than the industry average, showing a relative advantage in managing its asset-liability structure.

However, against the backdrop of falling operating income, the decline in profit was smaller than the decline in revenue, reflecting Ping An Bank’s stronger cost control capabilities. Specifically, business and administrative expenses decreased 5.8% year over year, while credit impairment losses decreased 17.4% year over year. Even more critically, Ping An Bank maintained stable asset quality. As of end-2025, the non-performing loan ratio was 1.05%, down 0.01 percentage points from the end of the previous year. This level not only outperformed the joint-stock banks’ average of 1.21%, but was also substantially lower than the commercial banking industry’s overall average of 1.50%.

At the same time, the provision coverage ratio remained at a high level of 220.88%, indicating sufficient risk coverage capacity. Structural changes in asset quality are worth noting: the non-performing loan ratio for personal loans fell 0.16 percentage points to 1.23%, while the non-performing loan ratio for corporate loans, due to increased risk exposure in certain existing real estate-related businesses, rose 0.17 percentage points to 0.87%. This shows that while the bank proactively exposed and took on existing risks in the corporate sector, the quality of its retail assets continued to improve, and its overall risk defense line remained solid.

Strategic Implementation: Dual-Engine Drive of Retail and Corporate, With Technology Empowering Cost Reduction and Efficiency Gains

Facing industry-wide pressure on net interest margins, Ping An Bank has firmly advanced the dual-engine strategy of “retail transformation” and “making the corporate business more refined,” and has truly turned “technology empowerment” into its core productive force for cost reduction and efficiency gains.

Retail business has advanced to a higher stage amid structural adjustment. In 2025, the revenue share of Ping An Bank’s retail financial business reached 52.7%, with a clear improvement in the structure. Among them, wealth management became a highlight: agency insurance business income surged 53.3%, fully demonstrating the advantages of bancassurance cooperation within the group. The bank continued to optimize its loan structure, increasing investment in lower-to-medium risk assets such as housing mortgages and new energy vehicles, and improving the asset quality of retail credit.

The corporate business, meanwhile, implemented a “refinement” strategy, deepening services in areas such as manufacturing and green finance. Supply-chain finance became a strong growth engine for the corporate segment, with total financing origination of nearly 2 trillion yuan for the full year, showing significant growth year over year. The key to its success is that it is no longer traditional collateral-based financing; instead, through digital means it deeply penetrates the “production, supply, and sales” of the industrial chain across all scenarios, embedding financial services into real transactions.

In terms of technology empowerment, AI technology has moved from concept validation into large-scale application. In risk control, Ping An Bank’s retail AI risk platform achieved a very high automated approval rate, significantly improving efficiency and reducing operational risk. On the marketing and service side, the application of technologies such as AIGC has brought notable cost savings. These practices show that Ping An Bank is effectively offsetting industry-wide “revenue increase” pressure through “cost reduction” enabled by technology, turning digital capabilities into tangible core competitiveness. The financial industry is, by nature, a high-potential area for AI applications. By focusing on risk prevention and control and efficiency improvement, Ping An Bank’s practices are among the leading ones in the industry.

Value Outlook: A Steady Return Through Long-Termism

Ping An Bank’s 2025 annual report is also a declaration of long-term value and social responsibility.

Amid earnings pressure, Ping An Bank still implemented a stable dividend policy. In 2025, it distributed cash dividends of 5.96 yuan RMB per 10 shares (including tax), totaling 115.66 billion yuan RMB in cash dividends. This accounted for 28.83% of the consolidated financial statements’ net profit attributable to the Bank’s ordinary shareholders. A compliant, transparent dividend policy that pays attention to the rights and interests of minority shareholders is a basic reflection of how listed companies practice long-termism and return shareholders’ trust.

In terms of social responsibility, Ping An Bank actively practices the “five thematic articles” of finance and has achieved substantive progress in areas such as technology finance, green finance, and inclusive finance: the scale of green lending expanded, the target customer base for inclusive finance broadened, and its pension finance product system has become increasingly rich, achieving deep integration between social responsibility and business development.

It can be seen that Ping An Bank’s performance in 2025 depicts a picture of steady progress amid headwinds in the industry and a firm commitment to transformation. Short-term financial data under pressure is an objective reflection of the industry cycle. However, its significantly better-than-peer asset quality, its supply-chain finance capabilities deeply embedded in the industries, and its technology empowerment that has already been transformed into productive forces together form the core pillars that enable it to move through the cycle and achieve sustainable development.

In the critical stage of the macroeconomic transition toward high-quality development, Ping An Bank is breaking through with a dual-engine approach of “digital transformation” and “industrial finance,” and is steadily moving forward on the new-quality finance track. For the market, paying attention to Ping An Bank means not only watching the performance recovery of a single bank, but also observing how China’s banking industry can reshape its intrinsic value by relying on strategic determination, risk management and control, and technological innovation. In the future, as the economic environment gradually improves and the effects of strategic adjustments continue to be released, with its commitment to prudent operations, Ping An Bank is expected to achieve simultaneous improvement in both quality and efficiency. (Produced by Thinking Finance)■