Reform from within, growth from outside: Huaxia Bank's year of transformative change

In the annual reports of multiple publicly listed banks, 2025 has been regarded as an extraordinary year. With changes in the external environment, net interest margins narrowing, and insufficient effective credit demand—amid industry pressure, Huaxia Bank (600015.SH), headquartered in Beijing, delivered an outstanding set of results.

As of the end of 2025, Huaxia Bank’s total assets reached RMB 4.74T, up 8.3%. Of this, customer deposits were RMB 2.38T, up 10.7%; loans outstanding were RMB 2.57T, up 8.5%. Both the incremental amounts and growth rates of deposits and loans hit the highest levels in the past five years. Compared with the end of the prior year, the proportion of technology finance loans increased by 2.93 percentage points, while the proportion of green finance loans increased by 2.60 percentage points.

At the same time, asset quality remained stable and improved steadily: in 2025, the non-performing loan ratio was 1.55%, down 0.05 percentage points, achieving a consecutive fifth year of decline.

In addition, profitability remained steady. Operating income was RMB 91.91B, and net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was RMB 27.2 billion.

As stated by Huaxia Bank Chairman Yang Shujian and President Qu Gang in their annual report remarks: “Looking back at 2025, every achievement has come not easily, but with exceptional value; every step forward leaves footprints shaped by perseverance and dedication.”

The efforts made over the past year have drawn a profound transformation path for Huaxia Bank—from within to outside, and from scale to quality and efficiency.

Cutting inward: activating a new engine for self-revolution

Roll the clock back to early 2025. Huaxia Bank welcomed a new leader, and a “self-revolution” began.

“Step out of the comfort zone and open up a new journey” became the ideological starting point for Huaxia Bank’s qualitative change.

In 2025, Huaxia Bank carried out “ten major actions” to enhance business and development. This systematic reform directly addressed pain points in business and development, from clarifying business strategy and improving internal management, to optimizing and adjusting the organizational structure and significantly cutting various expenses—fully reshaping Huaxia Bank, invigorating the fighting spirit of cadres and employees across the bank, opening up a new chapter for steady progress in its development, and setting new standards.

Huaxia Bank streamlined five first-level departments and adjusted internal setups across 26 departments at the head office. It promoted leaner institutions, clearer authority and responsibilities, and smoother mechanisms, providing more efficient and flexible management support for business development and fully unlocking organizational effectiveness.

Its evaluation system also underwent reconstruction. Huaxia Bank built an integrated evaluation mechanism of “evaluation to drive rectification, appraisal, and improvement,” with “3 major core indicators” for benefits, scale, and quality, and “5 major key targets” such as customer and characteristic businesses. The evaluation scope covers institutions at all levels.

Huaxia Bank also strengthened cost and expense management across the board. The annual report shows that business and administrative expenses were RMB 28.13B, down RMB 821M year over year, a decrease of 2.84%.

In this “cutting inward” reform, Huaxia Bank experienced a brand-new “transformation.”

The improvement in profitability quarter by quarter is the most direct. Data show that Huaxia Bank’s decline in operating income narrowed by 3.40 percentage points compared with the first three quarters, and the decline in net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company narrowed by 1.14 percentage points compared with the first three quarters.

When “right-sizing” the organization and “building muscle” for efficiency happen in parallel, and when performance evaluation shifts from a scale-driven orientation to value creation, a bank’s operational resilience is redefined.

The results brought by reform have given Huaxia Bank more confidence in dividends. In 2025, the dividend payout ratio reached 25.94%, up 0.9 percentage points from the previous year. Notably, over the past three years, the bank’s total dividend amount has grown year by year, and the dividend payout ratio has increased year by year. In 2024 and 2025, Huaxia Bank implemented interim dividend policies.

“Future cash dividend policy will balance regulatory requirements, shareholders’ investment returns, and the needs for the company’s sustainable development. The Bank will continue to enhance profitability and maintain a reasonable dividend payout ratio.” At the Huaxia Bank results briefing, management further reiterated its position.

Breaking through: deepening in the “dual-core specialties” to serve the real economy

The new engines created by internal reform have laid a solid foundation for Huaxia Bank to better serve the real economy.

With leadership setting the tone and breakthrough focused on priorities driving overall leaps, while doing well on the “five major areas of financial work,” Huaxia Bank is also committed to building two operational highlights: technology finance and green finance.

Compared with the end of the prior year, the proportion of Huaxia Bank’s technology finance loan portfolio in 2025 increased by 2.93 percentage points, and the proportion of green finance loans increased by 2.60 percentage points. At the same time, the outstanding balances of technology finance loans and green finance loans increased by 53.74% and 30.99% year over year, respectively, with growth rates exceeding the growth rates of the bank’s total loan portfolio by 45.02 and 22.27 percentage points.

It is reported that over the past year, Huaxia Bank accelerated the construction of its technology finance organizational system. Five branches—including Beijing, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Shenzhen, and Wuhan—set up technology finance centers. The bank established 7 technology sub-branches and 32 technology-feature sub-branches across the system, initially building a professional service system covering three tiers: head office, branches, and sub-branches.

Based on continuously improving its service system, Huaxia Bank’s support for technology-based enterprises became more efficient and precise. For example, it established a “loan-investment integration” mechanism and introduced innovative featured products such as R&D loans, loan-investment linkage loans, and loans with option rights, providing comprehensive financial services across the full life cycle of technology enterprises. It also deepened cooperation with various institutions to build an all-round, multi-level ecosystem for technology finance, supporting the transformation and implementation of scientific and technological achievements. It further rolled out early investments in technology innovation bonds in the interbank market, among others.

In the green finance area, Huaxia Bank focused on building a beautiful China and constructed a full-chain green finance service system covering “loans + investments + underwriting + leasing + wealth management.” It cooperated with the Asian Development Bank to carry out key projects such as “Promoting green and low-carbon development in industrial parks.”

Driven by Huaxia Bank’s “dual-core specialties,” achievements in other areas have also been noteworthy. The vision written in the annual report—“The five major areas of financial work, each one outstanding”—is becoming reality.

In inclusive finance, the outstanding balance of loans to inclusive small and micro enterprises was RMB 193.6 billion, up 6%, and it completed the regulatory plan for eight consecutive years. In retirement finance, the number of personal pension account holders was 776k, up 30.8%; financing amount for the retirement industry was RMB 58.6 billion, up 32.8%. In digital finance, the outstanding balance of loans to core industries of the digital economy was RMB 97.1 billion, up 29.9%.

It is worth noting that Huaxia Bank has fully leveraged its “Beijing home-court” advantages, with its market share continuing to rise. Data show that in 2025, the bank cumulatively provided various investment and financing services to the Beijing area exceeding RMB 500 billion, up 14.9%, with deposit and loan growth rates reaching 17% and 13%, respectively.

Through the cycle: a new development blueprint for diversification

As the external environment changes even more rapidly and challenges grow day by day, whether a bank can weather the cycle depends on whether it has enough diversified sources of momentum.

Looking back at the past year, Huaxia Bank has clearly accelerated the pace of building a coordinated development pattern across multiple fields.

Not only did its corporate customers increase by 6.71% compared with the end of the prior year, but its corporate deposits increased by 11.43%. Corporate loans (excluding discounting) increased by 13.88% compared with the end of the prior year. Personal deposits also rose by 9.01%, personal consumption loans grew by 0.40% compared with the end of the prior year, and the cumulative number of credit cards issued increased by 3.20% compared with the end of the prior year.

Meanwhile, its presence in financial markets continued to strengthen. In 2025, the cumulative trading volume of RMB and foreign-currency funds was RMB 86.9 trillion, the derivatives trading volume was RMB 10.3 trillion, and the bill trading volume was RMB 2 trillion. The bank also successfully completed its first QDII custody business, with assets under custody exceeding RMB 4 trillion, up 18.9%.

In addition, enhanced reach and coverage demonstrates the iterative upgrading of its digital transformation. In 2025, Huaxia Bank’s mobile banking signed up 31.31 million customers, with 6.26 million monthly active users (MAUs).

Beyond that, its subsidiaries also performed exceptionally well.

Data show that Huaxia Financial Leasing’s total assets exceeded RMB 200 billion, and its net profit exceeded RMB 3 billion. Its ROE ranked first among 66 peers. For Huaxia Wealth Management, the size of product management reached RMB 1.2 trillion, up 45.8%. Its growth rate has ranked in the forefront of the industry for three consecutive years. The number of cooperative distribution and agency channels was 172, ranking among the top three among peers. The proportion of off-bank distribution scale exceeded 60%, making it number one among peers.

In 2025, Huaxia Bank is in the concluding year of its “14th Five-Year Plan,” and also a key leap toward high-quality development. In this year, Huaxia Bank used the courage to cut inward to accomplish a qualitative change; by deepening its dual-core specialties and opening up space, and by strengthening resilience through building a system of diversified frameworks.

“Cloud sail set forth, the journey is long and promising.” As stated in the annual report remarks, standing at the new starting point of the “15th Five-Year Plan,” Huaxia Bank will continue to adhere to the principles of “business returning to fundamentals, management returning to essence, and positioning returning to its true nature,” and write a new chapter in China’s modernized financial practice.