2025 Wealth Management Subsidiary Report Card: China CITIC Bank and two other companies enter the 2 trillion yuan tier; Agricultural Bank's net profit increases by over 90%

As listed banks gradually release their 2025 annual financial reports, the operating conditions of their wealth-management subsidiaries are becoming increasingly clear. Data show that most institutions have seen a significant expansion in the size of their wealth-management products. Some joint-venture wealth-management companies, with faster growth rates on a high base, have also become highlights in the market. At the same time, the industry’s performance-splitting trend is becoming even more apparent.

In terms of product scale, CMB Wealth Management continues to lead the industry with 2.64 trillion yuan, followed closely by Xingyin Wealth Management with 2.43 trillion yuan. Of note, Xinyin Wealth Management, Agricultural Bank Wealth Management, and ICBC Wealth Management have all successfully entered the “two-trillion-yuan club.” Their year-over-year growth rates in scale are 17.96%, 9.23%, and 6.62%, respectively. As of the time of the statistics, 13 institutions have surpassed the one-trillion-yuan mark in assets under management, while the overall scale of 28 wealth-management subsidiaries increased year over year by 14.67%. Joint-venture wealth-management companies are performing especially strongly. The scale growth of Fabu Agricultural Bank Wealth Management exceeds 200%, and institutions such as BlackRock Jianxin, Goldman Sachs ICBC, Huihua Wealth Management, among others, have maintained growth rates of 45% or above.

Earnings capability shows a distinct pattern of divergence. While Ping An Wealth Management achieved a 33% increase in operating revenue, its net profit rose by 41%. Agricultural Bank Wealth Management saw its net profit surge 90% year over year to 3.754 billion yuan. China Huaxia Wealth Management also delivered strong results, with operating revenue growth of 34.79% and net profit growth of 39.03%. In contrast, Qingyin Wealth Management saw both operating revenue and net profit decline, with decreases of 26.97% and 36.96%, respectively. The annual report of Qingdao Bank explained that, affected by volatility in the bond market, the company actively adjusted its bond holdings, leading to a reduction of 203 million yuan in fee income.

Industry observers note that fixed-income products remain the absolute mainstay, with their share reaching 97.09% by the end of 2025. Wang Pengbo, chief analyst at Bosom Consulting, believes that residents’ demand for stable allocations and banks’ channel advantages will continue to support the development of fixed-income products. He expects their market share to rise steadily in 2026. It is also worth noting that some institutions are capturing market share through stage-based fee incentives, and fees for certain product sales services have been reduced to zero, which has become an important factor affecting industry profits.

Wealth-management businesses are becoming an important lever for banks’ transformation. The annual report of China Merchants Bank shows that its wealth-management fee income increased 21.39% year over year to 26.711 billion yuan. At the performance meeting, Chairman Miao Jianmin emphasized that this business is a key area for retail breakthroughs. Xingye Bank achieved a 19.22% growth in retail wealth-management intermediary business income by setting up a wealth-management department. Agricultural Bank’s agency business income grew by 87.8%, while Shanghai Pudong Development Bank’s AUM for individual customers increased 20.22% year over year. However, institutions such as Chongqing Bank still face challenges: its agency wealth-management business income fell 49.29% year over year, mainly due to the low interest-rate environment.

Regarding the 2026 market outlook, China Securities Co., Ltd. (CITIC) Investment predicts that the year-over-year growth rate of wealth-management scale will reach 12%-13%, with total scale surpassing 37 trillion yuan. Su Xiaorui, a senior research analyst at Suzhi Research Institute, analyzes that the decline in deposit interest rates and the suspension of issuance of medium- and long-term deposit products will drive the “deposit migration” phenomenon to continue. She expects that a large amount of fixed-term deposit funds will move into the wealth-management market after maturing in 2026, becoming the core driver of scale growth. At the same time, the expansion of wealth-management distribution channels toward securities firms and third-party institutions will inject new growth momentum into the market.