Everbright Bank Annual Report "Mix-up": 40 out of 47 branches were incorrect, Shanghai Branch's assets decreased by 403.6 billion

Does the data error in Everbright Bank’s annual report expose internal control weaknesses?

China News Service Jingwei April 2 - After the typo in the Bank of Communications’ dividend announcement, Everbright Bank’s annual report data also “made a mistake.”

On the evening of March 30, Everbright Bank disclosed the “2025 Annual Report” on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, which has now been withdrawn. On the evening of the 31st, the bank updated a version of the annual report on the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

Since Everbright Bank is listed both in A-shares and H-shares, on the 30th, the bank also disclosed the “2025 Annual Performance Announcement” and the “Everbright Bank 2025 Annual Report (A-shares)” on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. As of the time of publication, these two reports had not been withdrawn. On the evening of April 1, Everbright Bank’s H-shares issued a correction of relevant data in the “Final Performance/Preliminary Performance Published” on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, maintaining consistency with the A-share annual report.

China News Service Jingwei compared the annual reports published on March 31 in A-shares and on March 30 in H-shares and found that the data discrepancies mainly appeared in the asset sizes of branch institutions, with significant differences between the two reports.

The left image shows the corrected 2025 annual report data of Everbright Bank, and the right image shows the 2025 annual performance announcement disclosed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Source: SSE, HKEX

Both reports disclose asset size data for 47 institutions, including the head office, credit card center, domestic branches, and overseas branches, of which 40 have inconsistent data.

For example, the asset size of Everbright Bank’s Shanghai Branch H-share annual report is 39.54 billion yuan, while the A-share annual report shows 443.19B yuan, a difference of 403.65B yuan, with the A-shares data about 11 times the H-shares. The Qingdao Branch’s H-share annual report shows an asset size of 443.19B yuan, while the A-share report shows 98.01 billion yuan, a difference of 34.5178 billion yuan.

Comparing the two tables, the asset size data appears misaligned, possibly due to table formatting or data entry errors. For example, in the H-share annual report, the asset data for Qingdao, Ningbo, and Taiyuan branches before correction match those of the Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Nanjing branches after correction.

Everbright Bank stated that the correction did not affect other information published in the annual performance announcement.

However, as of the time of publication, Everbright Bank has not issued a correction announcement on the SSE, only re-released the “2025 Annual Report” on the SSE, along with a “2025 Performance” H-share announcement.

Source: HKEX Disclosure Easy

According to the “Rules for the Preparation and Disclosure of Company Information for Public Issuance of Securities No. 19—Correction of Financial Information and Related Disclosures (2020 Revision)”, if financial data in publicly disclosed periodic reports contain errors and are corrected by the board of directors, they should be disclosed separately and promptly via interim reports, including the corrected financial data and other information required by these regulations.

Additionally, the “Guidelines for Self-Regulation of Listed Companies No. 2—Information Disclosure Affairs Management (Revised March 2025)” (hereinafter referred to as the Self-Regulation Guidelines), Article 29, states that if errors, omissions, or misleading information occur in disclosures made through direct disclosure channels, they should be promptly corrected or supplemented with an announcement. Article 6 stipulates that information disclosed in overseas markets should be consistent with that disclosed domestically. When significant discrepancies occur, the listed company and relevant disclosure obligations should explain to the SSE and disclose corrections or supplements.

The Self-Regulation Guidelines specify that if a listed company or relevant disclosure obligations violate these rules, the SSE will take regulatory measures or disciplinary actions according to relevant regulations. If the involved entities are state-controlled listed companies or their controlling shareholders, the SSE will notify relevant state asset supervision authorities.

The HKEX also stipulates that if submitted data has been approved, companies can correct published documents within five calendar days after posting. If the HKEX agrees to the correction, it will add wording such as “This document has been invalidated, and a revised document has been issued separately” before the title of the published incorrect document. The content remains accessible on the “Disclosure Easy” website. Depending on the nature of the error, issuers should submit the revised documents via the electronic submission system for posting. The issuer should add " (Revised)" and " (Revised)" in brackets before the Chinese and English titles of the submitted materials.

The HKEX states, “The Exchange considers the publication of incorrect or misleading information a serious matter. Under the Listing Rules, issuers issuing such information may face disciplinary sanctions.”

The annual report data of Everbright Bank shows that in 2025, the bank’s revenue and net profit both declined. By the end of 2025, the group’s total assets reached 345.18B yuan, an increase of 2.96% from the previous year. In 2025, Everbright Bank achieved operating income of 7.17T yuan, down 6.72% year-on-year; net profit was 126.31B yuan, down 6.61% year-on-year.

In terms of asset quality, as of the end of 2025, the bank’s non-performing loan balance was 50.74B yuan, an increase of 1.49 billion yuan from the end of the previous year; the NPL ratio was 1.27%, up 0.02 percentage points; the special mention loan ratio was 1.85%, up 0.01 percentage points; overdue loan ratio was 2.13%, up 0.11 percentage points; the loan loss reserve coverage ratio was 174.14%, down 6.45 percentage points from the end of the previous year.

(For more reports and clues, please contact the author Wei Wei: weiwei@chinanews.com.cn)(China News Service Jingwei APP)

**　　(The viewpoints in this article are for reference only and do not constitute investment advice. Investing involves risks; please proceed with caution. )**

Editor: Luo Kun, Li Zhongyuan