Financial companies' "Fixed Income" retreat as "Hybrid" trend rises

By the end of 2025, the bank wealth management market, which has surpassed 33 trillion yuan, is undergoing structural adjustments. On March 5, Beijing Business Daily reporters found that among the 32 wealth management companies, 13 institutions—including China Post Wealth Management, Xingyin Wealth Management, Guangyin Wealth Management, Puyin Wealth Management, Hengfeng Wealth Management, Hangyin Wealth Management, Huiyin Wealth Management, Suyin Wealth Management, Shangyin Wealth Management, BlackRock CCB Wealth Management, Qingyin Wealth Management, Huihua Wealth Management, and Banque Populaire Agricultural Bank Wealth Management—have successively released their 2025 annual reports, presenting their latest business performance.

Overall, the industry is shifting from a pure fixed-income dominance to a faster transition toward a diversified approach with fixed income as a foundation and multiple asset classes enhancing returns. The expansion of hybrid products and active deployment in A-shares IPOs have become key strategies for wealth management firms to increase profits and attract clients. Industry insiders believe this trend is both a proactive response to market conditions and a crucial step for wealth management companies to move toward multi-layered, precise market matching.

Continuous Expansion of Hybrid Wealth Management Products

As of March 5, Beijing Business Daily reporters found that the 13 disclosed 2025 “performance reports” show positive growth in their assets under management, indicating steady industry expansion.

Among them, Xingyin Wealth Management, Puyin Wealth Management, and China Post Wealth Management each have assets exceeding one trillion yuan, at 2.43 trillion, 1.47 trillion, and 1.32 trillion yuan respectively. City commercial bank wealth management companies such as Suyin, Hangyin, Shangyin, Huiyin, and Qingyin also performed well, with assets of 826.159 billion, 607.599 billion, 385.865 billion, 236.485 billion, and 205.613 billion yuan, all maintaining steady growth. Notably, joint-venture wealth management firms are expanding rapidly, with Banque Populaire Agricultural Bank Wealth Management leading the industry with a year-over-year growth rate of 83.25%.

In addition to steady asset growth, product structure adjustments have become a major focus in 2025. According to reports from various companies, while fixed-income products remain the main offerings, their proportion has gradually declined. Conversely, the share of hybrid wealth management products has increased, making industry product diversification more evident.

For example, by the end of 2025, Xingyin Wealth Management’s fixed-income products accounted for 95.1% of its total assets, down from 95.53% at the end of June 2025, a decrease of 0.43 percentage points. Hybrid products increased from 3.35% to 3.99%. Hangyin Wealth Management’s 2025 annual report also shows a similar trend, with fixed-income products decreasing to 99.22%, and hybrid products rising. Huiyin Wealth Management’s fixed-income product share also decreased by 0.08 percentage points from June 2025, while hybrid products increased by 0.14 percentage points.

According to data from the Bank Wealth Management Registration and Custody Center, by the end of 2025, fixed-income products totaled 32.32 trillion yuan, accounting for 97.09% of all wealth management products, a slight decrease of 0.24 percentage points from the beginning of the year. Hybrid products totaled 0.87 trillion yuan, making up 2.61%, up 0.17 percentage points. Equity, commodity, and financial derivatives products are relatively small, at 0.08 trillion and 0.02 trillion yuan respectively.

Regarding these industry changes, Wang Pengbo, Chief Analyst at Broadcom Consulting, stated that under the pressure on asset-side yields, wealth management firms are adjusting their product structures to seek higher returns. “Current deposit rates are declining, and bond yields remain low, making traditional fixed-income strategies less satisfying for investors seeking moderate returns. Hybrid products, with their broader investment scope including stocks and bonds, can better adapt to market changes,” Wang emphasized. He added that this trend is not short-term but a natural result of the deepening transformation toward net asset value-based management in the industry.

Bai Wenxi, Vice Chairman of the China Enterprise Capital Alliance, further analyzed that in the long term, “fixed income as the main focus, supplemented by hybrids and diversified development” will become the long-term pattern of the industry. The core customer base of bank wealth management is mainly conservative investors with rigid demand for principal safety, so fixed-income products will remain the “cornerstone,” likely accounting for 60%–70%. Hybrid products will become the main battleground for institutional differentiation, with their share expected to rise from the current 10%–15% to 20%–30%, serving as a key area for wealth management firms to compete on research and development capabilities and brand differentiation. Niche products like equities, commodities, and financial derivatives will also expand in an orderly manner to meet high-net-worth clients and specific scenario needs, ultimately forming a mature, multi-layered, and precisely matched market.

Leveraging IPO Subscriptions to Enhance Returns

This structural adjustment is also reflected in the participation of many wealth management firms in offline IPO subscriptions for A-shares. Beijing Business Daily reporters found that since the beginning of 2026, wealth management firms have frequently appeared on the offline subscription lists of multiple IPO companies, successfully securing effective bids and becoming important players in the IPO market.

Specifically, on January 29, in the subscription announcement for Linping Development on the Shanghai Stock Exchange main board, four products from Xingyin Wealth Management were included, three of which are hybrid products: “Xingyin Wealth Management Li Fei Xing Cheng Alpha One-Month Holding Period 2,” “Xingyin Wealth Management Li Fei Xing Cheng Alpha Daily Open 1,” and “Xingyin Wealth Management Xing Rui All-Star 1,” each applying for 5.5 million shares at 38.41 yuan per share, alongside one fixed-income pension product. At the same time, Ningyin Wealth Management actively participated in offline IPO subscriptions, with six hybrid products applying for 5.5 million shares each at 38.36 yuan per share, also successfully making the effective bid list. Earlier, on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange main board, the subscription list of Shimeng Co., Ltd. also included multiple hybrid products from Ningyin and Xingyin Wealth Management in the effective bid list.

In fact, the rising proportion of hybrid products reflects wealth management firms’ proactive strategies to respond to market changes and seek higher returns. Bai Wenxi explained that according to the rules for offline allotment of A-share IPOs, institutional products participating in offline IPOs must meet certain equity investment requirements. Hybrid products, with their stock allocation flexibility, can adjust their underlying holdings to meet IPO participation thresholds, offering greater return elasticity. Pure fixed-income products, limited by their equity holdings, often find it difficult to meet these standards.

Bai further clarified that participation of hybrid products in IPOs is not just for IPO gains but a natural extension of the “fixed income +” strategy. IPO gains as part of “plus returns” can significantly improve risk-adjusted returns. The stock holdings in hybrid products can synergize with the existing equity allocations, reducing trading costs for new positions. After the new shares are listed, they can be flexibly disposed of based on market performance—either held long-term or realized for profit, feeding back into the fixed-income portion.

Beijing Business Daily reporters: Meng Fanxia, Zhou Yili