Long-termism and Development Resilience in Huaxia Bank's 2025 Annual Report

Ask AI · How does Huaxia Bank achieve countercyclical growth through structural optimization?

On March 30, Huaxia Bank (600015.SH ) released its 2025 annual report. As of the end of 2025, total assets were 4.74 trillion yuan, up 8.25% from the end of the previous year. Total loans were 2.57 trillion yuan, up 8.47% year-on-year; total deposits were 2.38w38 trillion yuan, up 10.7%. In 2025, operating income was 91.914 billion yuan, down 5.39% year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders was 27.2 billion yuan, down 1.72% year-on-year. The non-performing loan ratio was 1.55%, down 0.05 percentage points from the end of the previous year; the provision coverage ratio was 143.30%, down 18.59 percentage points from the end of the previous year.

In its annual report, Huaxia Bank not only shows data such as scale and profitability, but also reflects a process in which the bank is continuously optimizing and transforming its asset structure, liability structure, and profit structure, laying a more solid foundation for its future development.

Steady Recovery and Positive Trend: Improve Quality and Efficiency in Business Development

In 2025, Huaxia Bank’s momentum for scale growth was strong. Total assets were 47,376 billion yuan, up 8.3%; deposit balances were 23,817 billion yuan, up 10.7%; loan balances were 25,667 billion yuan, up 8.5%. The incremental amounts and growth rates for both deposits and loans all hit new highs in the past five years.

In terms of revenue, it maintained a steady recovery and positive trend. During the reporting period, operating income was 91.914 billion yuan, down 5.39%, narrowing by 3.40 percentage points compared with the first three quarters. Net profit attributable to shareholders was 27.200 billion yuan, down 1.72%, narrowing by 1.14 percentage points compared with the first three quarters.

From the composition of operating income, the profit structure is continuously being optimized. First, against the backdrop of pressure on industry net interest margins, Huaxia Bank’s net interest income achieved growth against the trend. The annual report shows that its net interest income for the full year was 62.948 billion yuan, up 1.43% year-on-year, and accounted for 68.49% of operating income.

Meanwhile, in 2025, Huaxia Bank actively expanded intermediary businesses such as asset management, wealth management, investment banking, and custody, driving diversified development of fee and commission income. During the reporting period, the Group recorded net fee and commission income of 5.576 billion yuan, an increase of 133 million yuan, up 2.44% year-on-year. It accounted for 6.07% of operating income, up 0.47 percentage points year-on-year. Cost and expense control was strengthened across the board, with business and management fees of 28.133 billion yuan, down 821 million yuan year-on-year, a decrease of 2.84%.

Not only should you look at the total amount, but also the structure. Huaxia Bank’s asset structure, liability structure, and profit structure are being optimized and transformed. First, in terms of asset structure: it has continued to do well on the financial “five major articles,” and related loan growth has been impressive. Second, its liability structure has been optimized: it has continued to increase efforts in deposit mobilization, strengthen the construction of a customer-segmentation operating system, and enhance settlement fund management and services, improving both the support strength of deposits and the quality and effectiveness of liability growth. As of the end of the reporting period, deposits accounted for 50.27%, up 1.11 percentage points from the end of the previous year. It supports the development of technology and green finance featured businesses by issuing 100 billion yuan of technology innovation bonds and 200 billion yuan of green finance bonds. Third, its profit structure has been optimized, with income achieving diversified development.

As a listed bank, Huaxia Bank maintains a continuous and stable dividend policy. Over the past three years, the total dividend amount has grown year by year, and the dividend payout ratio has increased year by year. For FY2025, it proposed to distribute cash dividends of 3.20 yuan per 10 shares (tax included). Cash dividends totaling 50.93 billion yuan will be distributed. Together with the cash dividends already distributed in the 2025 interim period of 1.00 yuan per 10 shares (tax included), totaling 15.91 billion yuan, the total cash dividends for the full year will be 4.20 yuan per 10 shares (tax included), and cash dividends totaling 66.84 billion yuan will be distributed. The dividend payout ratio reached 25.94%, up 0.9 percentage points from the previous year. In 2024 and 2025, both years implemented interim dividend policies, enabling investors to share the company’s growth dividend earlier.

Sticking to the Main Business: Solidify the Level of Serving the Real Economy and Enhance Service to the Real Economy

At present, the domestic economy has continued to improve, and the economic structure and industrial structure keep changing. Banks need to align with the trend and continuously enhance their ability to serve the real economy.

In 2025, both the incremental amount and growth rate of Huaxia Bank’s loans reached new highs in the past five years. Huaxia Bank said it will stay focused on its main responsibilities and main business, improve the quality and efficiency of serving the real economy, increase support for key areas and weak links in the national economy, and solidly implement the financial “five major articles.”

In key areas, Huaxia Bank has continued to strengthen financial supply. It closely focuses on key areas such as new productive forces, manufacturing, strategic emerging industries, and the private economy, increases credit disbursement, optimizes service processes, and improves the quality and efficiency of services. The loan balance for the manufacturing sector was 3,040 billion yuan, up 18.7%.

Especially in areas such as technology finance and green finance, the business share has increased, achieving “dual brilliance” in both technology finance and green finance. Green finance’s “dual brilliance.” The growth rates of loans to technology-based enterprises and green loans are both higher than the bank’s overall loan balance growth rate.

Technology finance is being accelerated: technology-finance features have become more prominent. Based on serving technological innovation and industrial upgrading, it continues to explore innovative development paths for technology finance to support the development of new productive forces, accelerates the advancement of the specialized system and the construction of technology-feature branches, improves the technology finance product system, actively provides integrated financial services, and innovates service models. It has implemented investments in the first batch of technology innovation bonds in the interbank market; compared with the end of last year, the loan customers for technology-based enterprises and the loan balance to technology enterprises increased by 47.38% and 53.74%, respectively.

Green finance characteristics are prominent, and green finance is being further deepened. Focusing on four key areas—dual carbon, Beautiful China, transition finance, and zero (low)-carbon parks—green loan growth rates in areas including energy conservation and carbon reduction, resource recycling, environmental protection equipment manufacturing, clean energy equipment manufacturing, green transportation, and urban and rural energy infrastructure have exceeded 30%. In cooperation with the Asian Development Bank on the project “Promoting Green and Low-Carbon Development in Industrial Parks” for the first time, the balance of green finance business increased by 31.42% from the end of last year, and the green loan balance grew by 30.99%.

Inclusive finance nourishes people’s livelihoods. The balance of inclusive loans to small and micro enterprises was 1,936 billion yuan, up 6%, completing regulatory plans for eight consecutive years. Pension finance is being rolled out at an accelerated pace. Based on the overall development of the national elderly care cause, it has built a “three-in-one” development pattern of pension finance, elderly care service finance, and pension industry finance, achieving full coverage of four major categories—pension savings, funds, wealth management, and insurance—to comprehensively meet residents’ pension-related financial needs. The number of personal pension accounts was 77.6 hundred thousand households, up 30.8%; financing for the elderly care industry was 586 billion yuan, up 32.8%. Digital finance empowers development: it accelerates the deep integration of digital technology and financial business, proactively integrates into the process of industrial digitalization, continuously expands scenarios for digital finance services, and promotes large-scale application of digital finance. The loan balance in core industries of the digital economy was 971 billion yuan, up 29.9%.

Making Progress Toward Good Results: Focus on Building Long-Term Capability

Risk prevention and control is a top priority for banks. While steadily expanding asset scale and optimizing structure, Huaxia Bank coordinates development with security, strengthens compliance awareness, enhances the forward-looking and proactive nature of risk management, continuously improves its risk prevention and control system, and strictly keeps the bottom line and red line of preventing systemic risks, providing protection for high-quality development.

Judging from the figures in the annual report, asset quality has been further solidified. As of the end of 2025, the bank’s non-performing loan ratio was 1.55%, down 0.05 percentage points from the end of the previous year, achieving steady declines for five consecutive years; the effectiveness of asset quality management has continued to show. The provision coverage ratio was 143.30%, down 18.59 percentage points.

Its capital strength has been further enhanced, with core tier-1 capital adequacy ratio at 9.38%, tier-1 capital adequacy ratio at 11.75%, and capital adequacy ratio at 13.16%, all significantly higher than the minimum regulatory requirements, providing solid capital protection for stable asset quality and the sustainable development of its business.

In terms of compliance management, Huaxia Bank has built a compliance officer team covering its head office, branches, and subsidiaries, making it the first financial institution in the banking industry to systematically establish a compliance officer team. It strengthens accountability and the management of responsibility investigations, promotes the digital transformation of compliance, and continuously improves full-process internal control and compliance management mechanisms. It prevents case risks across the entire chain, optimizes anti-money laundering risk assessment systems, strengthens operational risk control and legal risk prevention, and continuously reinforces the compliance operation defense line.

It is worth noting that Huaxia Bank is committed to fully integrating the concept of sustainable development into its corporate strategy, major decisions, daily operations, and employees’ conduct, viewing it as the core competitive strength of a modern financial institution. In 2025, Huaxia Bank officially released its first 《Sustainable Development Report》, marking a strategic upgrade of its fulfillment practices from “social responsibility” to “sustainable development,” with the connotation of development comprehensively deepened.

Huaxia Bank President Qu Gang said that in 2026, Huaxia Bank will adhere to the overall working tone of making progress while maintaining stability, with development plans as guidance. It will focus on four core tasks—“scale growth, structural optimization, stable benefits, and quality improvement,” adopt precise measures, coordinate and deploy resources, and work in synergy to achieve a reasonable increase in quantity and an effective improvement in quality, ensuring that the “15th Five-Year Plan” gets off to a good start and begins well.

In their annual report addresses, Huaxia Bank Chairman Yang Shujian and President Qu Gang stated that in 2026, Huaxia Bank will take one step further to strengthen confidence, rally efforts, and strive with determination. It will follow the overall working tone of making progress while maintaining stability, return operations to their roots, return management to its essence, and return positioning to its true character, delivering even more outstanding operating performance to repay the trust and support of shareholders and all sectors of society.