Bank of Communications' 2025 "Answer Sheet": Strengthening Shanghai's "Home Court" Advantage, Digital Transformation Achievements Highlighted

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On March 27, Bank of Communications released its 2025 annual performance report. Key operating indicators continued to maintain a favorable momentum of stability and improvement in both quality and efficiency, delivering an eye-catching answer to the market with “a double rise in both quantity and quality.”

By the end of 2025, the Group’s total assets exceeded 15.5 trillion yuan, up 4.35% from the end of the previous year. In terms of profitability, in 2025 the Group recorded operating income of 265.071 billion yuan and net profit attributable to equity holders of the parent company of 95.622 billion yuan, up 2.02% and 2.18% year over year, respectively.

As the only state-owned large commercial bank with its headquarters currently located in Shanghai, BOCM has effectively played the role of a mainstay in finance and a stabilizing “anchor stone.” With two major breakthroughs—building Shanghai’s “home base” and digital transformation—as the strategic implementation paths, it has charted a development course with distinctive characteristics and continued to lay a solid foundation for high-quality development.

Credit tilts toward key areas; asset quality continues to be stable and improve in quality

The annual report shows that, as of the end of 2025, Bank of Communications’ customers’ loan balance was 9.12 trillion yuan, an increase of 6.64%.

Overall, in 2025, BOCM’s corporate loans displayed a good trend of “growing total volume and improving structure.” Full-year RMB corporate loans for real use amounted to 505.5 billion yuan, up 10.1%. Currently, BOCM’s project reserves for Q1 and Q2 of 2026 overall maintain steady growth. Going forward, it will promote orderly delivery of credit deployment.

Judging by where corporate loans are directed, BOCM stays true to its initial mission of serving the real economy, fully supports and serves new quality productive forces, and focuses on targeted efforts in key areas such as the “five major articles” of finance. It works to make technology finance a distinctive competitive advantage in its corporate banking business. At the same time, it gives priority support to key real-economy areas aligned with the direction of economic development and policy guidance, such as manufacturing, strategic emerging industries, and rural-related sectors.

More specifically, leveraging the Group’s full-license operating advantage, BOCM has built an integrated service system encompassing equity, bonds, lending, leasing, and trust—providing diversified financial support across the entire life cycle for technology enterprises. The bank has also introduced a dedicated “Kechuang Easy Loan” product line, and focuses on forming specialized research teams for emerging technology industries to build a service model of “tailoring measures to industries.” As of the end of 2025, BOCM’s technology loan balance exceeded 1.58 trillion yuan, up 10.73% from the end of the previous year. Loan growth rates for “specialized, refined, distinctive, and innovative” small and medium-sized enterprises and for technology-based SMEs were 21.02% and 36.29%, respectively.

In terms of layout in key regions, BOCM effectively promotes the landing of major national regional development strategies through efficient financial supply. By the end of 2025, loans in three key areas—Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area—grew 6.59% from the end of the previous year, accounting for about 54%.

Retail loans have also recently shown a positive trend. Since March, the bank’s mortgage application volume has risen noticeably, and signs of stabilization in the real estate market have emerged. If this trend continues, it will help drive retail loans to achieve the expected growth target.

It is understood that this year BOCM’s credit deployment target is for the incremental loan growth for the full year not to be less than last year. On the deployment timetable, it will balance appropriately front-loaded efforts with steady and sustainable growth. For Q1, the planned deployment proportion is about 40%, and for the first half the cumulative proportion reaches more than 60%.

Worth noting is that while credit scale expands steadily, BOCM is also working to enhance the level of risk management and refine its precision, promoting asset quality to improve in both stability and quality, with risk indicators continuing to be optimized. As of the end of 2025, the bank’s non-performing loan ratio was 1.28%, down 0.03 percentage points from the end of the previous year.

Shanghai’s “home base” boosts visibility; fully leverages the innovation source-building function

As the only state-owned large commercial bank with its headquarters currently located in Shanghai, BOCM brings together the strength of the Group to build advantages in Shanghai’s “home base,” using the power of finance to help develop Shanghai’s “five centers” and support high-quality economic and social development in Shanghai.

Over the past year of 2025, BOCM continued to reshape its service model and business processes using a “one matter” mindset and digital methods. It further improved its visibility and contribution in building Shanghai’s “home base,” and enhanced its innovation source-building function.

More specifically, focusing on building Shanghai’s science and technology innovation center, BOCM is working to enhance the capability of technology financial services, increasing support for hard-tech enterprises and major science-and-technology innovation projects. It has released three major leading-industry action plans in Shanghai, cumulatively providing loans of more than 40 billion yuan to the three leading industries of integrated circuits, biopharmaceuticals, and artificial intelligence, achieving full-20 industrial-chain coverage in fields such as integrated circuits.

At the same time, BOCM has deeply integrated into the construction of Shanghai’s financial market, consolidating and expanding its leading advantage in financial market business. In 2025, it reached transactions of 165 billion yuan for Bond Connect and Swap Connect. In the interbank factors market, the agency clearing and settlement volume and the settlement volume in the securities and futures factors market both remained among the top positions in the market.

In terms of serving Shanghai’s high-level opening-up, BOCM implements requirements for the digital construction of Shanghai’s shipping and trade, and developed and rolled out the “BOCOM Shipping & Trade Connect” platform and the “Foreign Trade Express Loan” product. The placement of blockchain credit letter relending for the shipping and trade block exceeded 3 billion yuan.

Meanwhile, BOCM is actively practicing the philosophy of a people-centered city, serving the construction of a modern city. It has established cooperation with 76 major projects at the municipal level and 256 at the district level.

It is understood that in 2025, BOCM’s RMB general loans in the Shanghai region grew by more than 16%, ranking among the top in the market. Its market share continued to increase, and its investment subsidiaries’ investment projects in Shanghai also hit an all-time high.

BOCOM management said that going forward, the bank will continue to maintain strategic determination in building Shanghai’s “home base,” continue to increase resource allocation to Shanghai and key regions in the Yangtze River Delta, maintain relatively high growth rates in deposit and loan balances in the Yangtze River Delta, and steadily improve profitability and the contribution of profits.

Digital transformation results stand out; driving upgrades in financial service efficiency

In recent years, the application of AI technology in the banking industry has continued to deepen, becoming an important force driving the digital transformation of banks. BOCM attaches great importance to the development and application of AI technology, treating it as a core direction for building a new digital-era BOCM.

In 2025, the proportion of financial technology investment in total revenue exceeded 5%, and the proportion of financial technology personnel increased. The bank’s smart computation scale grew by more than 50% compared with the previous year, further improving the governance framework for artificial intelligence and continuously promoting the rollout of AI application scenarios.

It is understood that more than 20,000 employees of BOCM use agents to enhance and improve work efficiency. In particular, by using AI thinking to reconfigure business processes, BOCM took the lead in breakthroughs in areas such as account opening, credit granting, approval, authorization, and international settlement. By leveraging AI capabilities, the volume of authorized businesses at the counter declined by more than 60% year over year, and the efficiency of handling international settlement business improved by more than 20%. It has realized business assistance and intelligent processing across multiple stages of the credit process, and has preliminarily formed a new mode of human-machine collaboration.

BOCOM management said at the performance conference that it will firmly and unswervingly implement and apply artificial intelligence as an important direction of work in the “15th Five-Year Plan period” period, increase resource investment, and focus on four main directions:

First, strengthen technology capability building. Apply AI comprehensively in the technology domain, covering the entire process such as demand analysis, product development, system testing, production operations and maintenance, and network security control, to support the bank’s high-quality development with strong technological capabilities.

Second, deepen service business and employees. Based on the underlying logic of business, remold processes driven by AI such as funds settlement and clearing, credit approval, tender procurement, resource allocation, and digital office work. Explore digital committee and digital expert applications to strengthen digital support for business decision-making.

Third, upgrade services for the market and customers. Promote the transformation of AI from single-point applications to full integration, enhance product and service capability levels, and create an extremely simple and convenient customer experience.

Fourth, improve intelligent risk prevention and control. Accelerate the application of AI technology in comprehensive risk management to achieve early identification, early warning, early exposure, and early resolution of risks, enhancing the forward-looking nature and precision of risk identification, and continuing to improve the quality and effectiveness of post-loan management.

Through this performance report showing “a double rise in both quantity and quality,” BOCM demonstrates the operating resilience and innovation vitality of a state-owned big bank. In the opening year of the “15th Five-Year Plan period,” BOCM will continue to lead the bank’s high-quality development through innovative breakthroughs in building Shanghai’s “home base” and digital transformation. With a more resilient approach to operations, better-quality services, and a more innovative posture, it will help implement national strategies, empower industrial upgrading, and inject stronger financial momentum into high-quality economic and social development.

(This article does not constitute any investment advice. The information disclosure content shall be subject to the company announcements. Investors act at their own risk.)

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