China's First Listed Bank Annual Report Unveiled! CITIC Bank's Non-Performing Rate Achieves "Seven Consecutive Declines," Real Estate Loans Continue to Decrease

Cailian Press, March 20 (Reporter Peng Kefeng) Today evening, CITIC Bank was the first to release its 2025 performance report.

According to official statistics, in 2025, the group achieved a net profit attributable to shareholders of the bank of 70.618 billion yuan, a 2.98% increase from the previous year; operating income of 212.475 billion yuan, a 0.55% decrease; among which, net interest income was 144.469 billion yuan, down 1.51% from last year, and non-interest net income was 68.006 billion yuan, up 1.55%.

As of last year, CITIC Bank had achieved a steady decline in non-performing loans for seven consecutive years, but the group’s net interest margin in 2025 was 1.63%, down 0.14 percentage points from the previous year. Compared to this, the People’s Bank of China announced that at the end of last year, the net interest margin of commercial banks remained at a record low of 1.42%.

PBOC guides banks to reduce liability costs; CITIC Bank’s interest expense decreased last year

In terms of asset size, CITIC Bank’s total assets broke the 10 trillion yuan mark for the first time at the end of last year, reaching 101.103 trillion yuan, a 6.28% increase from the end of the previous year; total loans and advances were 58.622 trillion yuan, up 2.48%; customer deposits totaled 60.493 trillion yuan, up 4.69%.

Looking at operating income, CITIC Bank achieved a net interest income of 144.469 billion yuan, a decrease of 22.10 billion yuan or 1.51% from last year. The group’s net interest margin was 1.63%, down 0.14 percentage points from last year; net interest spread was 1.60%, down 0.11 percentage points. However, the bank’s interest-bearing liabilities cost rate at the end of last year was 1.61%, down 0.41 percentage points from the previous year. The group’s interest expense was 140.119 billion yuan, a reduction of 22.993 billion yuan or 14.10%, mainly due to the decline in the cost rate of interest-bearing liabilities.

In response, CITIC Bank stated that it effectively responded to industry margin compression pressures, adhering to a “volume-price balance” management strategy, outperforming the market in margin changes, and achieving a liability cost rate comparable to large state-owned banks.

This morning, the PBOC announced that the latest Loan Prime Rate (LPR) is 3.0% for the 1-year term and 3.5% for over 5 years. The LPR has remained unchanged for 10 consecutive months. A representative from a listed bank told reporters that if commercial banks’ net interest margins do not recover soon, it indicates that the PBOC is unlikely to cut interest rates significantly in the short term.

During the reporting period, CITIC Bank achieved non-interest net income of 68.006 billion yuan, an increase of 1.55% from last year, accounting for 32.01% of total income, up 0.67 percentage points. Notably, wealth management service fees increased by 1.909 billion yuan, a 45.17% rise; agency business fees increased by 1.234 billion yuan, a 24.77% increase.

Manufacturing leads in loan balances; real estate loans continue to decline, accounting for only 9.03%

According to CITIC Bank’s latest announcement, the proportion of real estate loans in the bank’s total loans has further decreased.

The bank’s announcement shows that as of the end of the reporting period, manufacturing, leasing and business services, water conservancy, environment, and public facilities management were the top three sectors in the company’s loan balances, which were 6.884 trillion yuan, 6.261 trillion yuan, and 4.365 trillion yuan respectively. Manufacturing loans accounted for 20.90% of the company’s loans, up 1.78 percentage points from the end of last year. Real estate loans totaled 2.975 trillion yuan, accounting for 9.03%, down 0.78 percentage points from the previous year. In terms of growth, manufacturing, leasing and business services, and wholesale and retail trade saw the largest increases.

CITIC Bank pointed out that by the end of 2025, non-performing loans were mainly concentrated in the real estate, manufacturing, and wholesale and retail sectors, accounting for 58.79% of the total non-performing loans. However, the group’s non-performing loan ratio (excluding bill discounting) decreased by 0.18 percentage points from the previous year.

CITIC Bank emphasized that it highly values credit risk prevention related to real estate, proactively increasing efforts to resolve and dispose of risks, with changes in non-performing loans within expected and controllable ranges.