Bank Wealth Management Products' "Performance Benchmark" Drops Over 50%; Average Returns Below 2% in 2025

Performance benchmarks, which investors view as an important reference for expected returns on wealth management products, have recently undergone a series of adjustments.

Since 2026, more than a dozen bank wealth management subsidiaries have issued announcements regarding adjustments to their product performance benchmarks, involving hundreds of products.

On one hand, some products’ performance benchmarks have been lowered, with the upper limit of the benchmark reduced by more than 50% compared to previous levels. Based on the adjusted benchmarks, most products now have an upper limit below 3%.

On the other hand, the benchmarks have shifted from fixed values or fixed ranges to being linked to indices. As market conditions drive index changes, the performance benchmarks of wealth management products will also be adjusted accordingly.

Industry analysts point out that this round of adjustments is a positive response to regulatory guidance and industry standards. In the context of declining asset yields, such adjustments help align benchmarks more closely with the true nature of net-value-based wealth management operations. In the short term, more wealth management firms are expected to follow suit and lower their benchmarks.

Some products’ benchmarks have been cut by 50%

Since 2026, over ten wealth management companies—including Agricultural Bank of China Wealth Management, China Post Wealth Management, China Merchants Bank Wealth Management, Shanghai Silver Wealth Management, Everbright Wealth Management, Hengfeng Wealth Management, Bank of Communications Wealth Management, Xingye Wealth Management, Huaxia Wealth Management, Minsheng Wealth Management, and Ping An Wealth Management—have announced adjustments to their product benchmarks.

Overall, the upper limits of the adjusted benchmarks for these products are now mostly below 3%.

For example, Hengfeng Wealth Management’s one-and-a-half-year fixed-term wealth management product had its benchmark lowered from 4.25%-4.75% to “the 1-year fixed deposit rate announced by the People’s Bank of China + 0.85%” (i.e., 2.35%). Compared to its previous upper limit, this is a 51% reduction.

Minsheng Wealth Management adjusted the benchmark of a two-year fixed-income enhancement product from 4.0%-6.0% to 2.6%-3.1%, a 35% decrease in the upper limit and a 48% decrease in the lower limit.

Agricultural Bank of China Wealth Management lowered the benchmark of its 7-day wealth management product from 2.20%-3.20% to 1.70%-2.20%, a 23% reduction in the upper limit and 31% in the lower.

Data from Puyi Standard also shows that as of February 2026, the average benchmarks of on-sale products declined slightly compared to January: fixed income products’ average benchmark decreased by 1 basis point to approximately 2.18%, and mixed products’ average benchmark fell by 3 basis points to about 2.99%.

In addition to lowering benchmarks, some wealth management firms are shifting from fixed values or ranges to benchmarks linked to indices such as the ChinaBond Index or the People’s Bank of China’s 7-day reverse repo rate, reflecting a move toward dynamic adjustment.

For example, Everbright Wealth Management adjusted a half-year product’s benchmark from a fixed 1.80% to the “CBA00113.CS - ChinaBond New Composite Full Price (less than 1 year) Index yield.”

Bank of Communications Wealth Management changed a 30-day fixed-income product’s benchmark from “2.00%-3.70% (annualized)” to “30% of the People’s Bank of China’s announced savings deposit rate + 70% of the ChinaBond 0-3 months Treasury bond index yield.”

Some firms are also linking benchmarks to relatively stable indicators such as the People’s Bank of China’s 7-day notice deposit rate or 1-year fixed deposit rate.

On March 12, reporters from Huaxia Times inquired with several wealth management firms about these adjustments, but as of press time, no official responses had been received.

More standardized performance benchmarks

Performance benchmarks are an important reference for investors when choosing wealth management products. To attract investors, some firms previously engaged in “ranking” their yields—showing returns through “shell products” and adjusting yields on newly issued or very small-scale products to appear more attractive, often presenting higher annualized returns. After investors entered and product scales expanded rapidly, these yields quickly fell back to normal levels.

To regulate such practices, in December 2025, the State Financial Supervision and Administration issued the “Measures for the Disclosure of Asset Management Product Information” (the “Measures”). Regarding performance benchmarks, the Measures require that the disclosure of past performance should follow principles of stability and internal logical consistency, prohibiting arbitrary changes to disclosure rules or selective disclosure of certain periods to exaggerate past performance. It also stipulates that similar products should not apply significantly different disclosure rules. Furthermore, product managers should maintain the continuity of performance benchmarks and generally avoid adjusting them.

Zeng Gang, chief expert at the Shanghai Financial and Development Laboratory, notes that regulators are explicitly concerned with the “achievement rate”—the proportion of actual returns that outperform the benchmark—which directly encourages institutions to lower benchmarks to increase the likelihood of “meeting” targets. Instead of passively lagging behind, it’s better to proactively lower benchmarks to a level that can be realistically achieved.

He also explains that shifting from fixed values or ranges to benchmarks linked to market indices like the ChinaBond Index or the People’s Bank of China’s deposit rates represents a deeper paradigm shift. For example, the new benchmark for Bank of Communications Wealth Management will float with market interest rates, reducing operational costs associated with frequent manual adjustments and breaking the psychological expectation among investors that these are “implicit rigid guarantees.” This is a significant step toward true “net-value” and “market-oriented” operations in the wealth management industry after years of implementation of new asset management regulations.

In addition to regulatory considerations, the average yields of wealth management products in 2025 are also a factor.

According to the China Wealth Management Market Annual Report (2025) published by China Wealth Management Network, the average yield of wealth management products in 2025 was 1.98%, down 0.67 percentage points from 2.65% in 2024.

Data from Puyi Standard shows that as of the end of February 2026, the one-month annualized yield of cash management products was 1.25%, a slight decline from the previous month; the overall average one-month annualized yield of fixed income products was 2.16%, down 146 basis points; the averages for mixed and equity products were 1.30% and 5.83%, respectively, with overall declines.

Zeng Gang told reporters, “In the context of continuously falling deposit rates and bond yields at low levels, the actual performance of wealth management products has diverged significantly from the previous benchmarks of 3% to 5%. Continuing to maintain high benchmarks not only results in low ‘achievement rates’ but may also cause misunderstandings or disputes among investors.” In this situation, lowering benchmarks is a proactive acknowledgment by wealth management firms of current realities.

“Short-term, more firms are expected to follow suit and lower their benchmarks,” said Zhang Qiaozhu, a researcher at Puyi Standard, to Huaxia Times. He believes that the current low-interest-rate environment and loose liquidity conditions are unlikely to change soon, and the downward trend of bond yields will likely persist in the near term, continuing to pressure investment returns. Additionally, some existing products’ benchmarks still deviate from actual operational yields, leaving room for further optimization and adjustment.