Postal Savings Bank and other corporate services have quietly achieved a scale leap, and listed banks’ 2025: retail has “fallen out of favor”

Ask AI · Why does corporate banking grow against the trend when retail is weak?

Jiemian News reporter | Zeng Lingjun

As of April 1, annual reports from 23 listed banks have been disclosed, and changes in banks’ business structure are gradually coming into view.

According to a review by Jiemian News reporters, retail business—which had been the main growth driver for most banks—saw its growth rate slow down, and even experienced phased setbacks, while corporate banking bucked the trend and stepped up efforts. Its shares of revenue and net profit have continued to rise, becoming a key pillar supporting stable bank performance.

For example, Postal Savings Bank of China (601658.SH, 01658.HK) has already become the “strong driving engine” for the bank’s overall growth. Over the past five years, its intermediary business income has grown at an average annual rate of as high as 57%, and its share of total intermediary business income has risen to 32%.

An analyst covering the banking sector at a securities firm in East China told Jiemian News reporters that the countertrend breakthrough in corporate banking by listed banks in 2025 is an inevitable choice for the industry to respond to the adjustment period for retail business. Currently, retail business is affected by factors such as the economic environment and changes in consumer habits, making it difficult for growth momentum to rebound significantly in the short term. Meanwhile, corporate banking, backed by strong anti-cyclical capacity, high comprehensive returns, and strong customer stickiness, has become an important driver of growth in bank performance.

Corporate banking “soars”

Looking across the disclosed annual reports of listed banks, the growth rate of corporate banking has generally been impressive, forming a sharp contrast with the sluggishness of retail business. Among them, Postal Savings Bank’s performance is particularly outstanding. This state-owned large bank, long known for its retail focus, is quietly completing a leap in scale in corporate banking.

Data shows that as of the end of 2025, Postal Savings Bank added 623.812 billion yuan in corporate loans for the year, up as much as 17.09% from the end of the previous year. Its total corporate loans exceeded 4.27 trillion yuan, ranking sixth in the industry. This growth rate far outpaced the average level of state-owned large banks. According to disclosures, the other five state-owned large banks’ average growth rate in corporate loans last year was 9.9%, while Postal Savings Bank exceeded that benchmark by 7.19 percentage points.

Looking at a longer time horizon, Postal Savings Bank’s corporate business growth shows a clear acceleration trend—company loans increased by 116% over five years, and the number of corporate clients doubled over five years.

More importantly, its income structure has been optimized. At the bank’s industry performance briefing, Xu Xueming, Vice President of Postal Savings Bank, told media including Jiemian News that in 2025, the bank’s corporate financial intermediary business income grew 32.34% year-on-year, of which investment banking fee income grew 38.52% year-on-year.

At the earnings release, Lu Wei, President of Postal Savings Bank, candidly acknowledged that the company’s business used to be a shortcoming for the bank in the past. But in recent years, it has developed rapidly. He summarized the bank’s rapid growth in corporate business in recent years with “three doublings”: during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the number of corporate clients, loan scale, and total customer financing all achieved doublings.

Postal Savings Bank’s breakthrough is not an isolated case. Among joint-stock banks, Ping An Bank (000001.SZ) is quite representative. In 2025, the bank’s corporate business played the role of a “ballast stone.” Its enterprise loan balance increased 3.5% from the end of the previous year; the number of corporate customers grew 13.2%; and the share of operating income from corporate business rose to 44.1%, effectively offsetting downward pressure on retail business.

The bank’s Vice President, Fang Weihao, told Jiemian News reporters that in 2025 corporate business continued the previous trend, filling in for retail growth. Overall, last year, loans grew 3.5%, and low-yield bills were reduced by 1300 billion yuan. So, overall results show some progress.

Last year, CITIC Bank (601998.SH, 00998.HK)’s corporate banking business (corporate banking) net operating income grew 2.18%, and its share rose to 47.35%, taking on a major responsibility.

Many city and rural commercial banks have also launched “soaring” strategies in corporate banking. Last year, Chongqing Bank (601963.SH, 01963.HK) recorded a corporate loan balance of 4098.67 billion yuan, up 30.95% year-on-year. Its share of total loans rose to 77.46%, becoming the core engine driving asset scale to exceed 1 trillion yuan.

Retail business declines across the board

In contrast to the high growth of corporate banking is the widespread decline in retail business.

Last year, Chongqing Bank’s personal banking division recorded a pre-tax profit of -927.9 million yuan, a sharp drop from the 444.4 million yuan profit in 2024, marking the bank’s first pre-tax loss in retail business in nearly ten years. Behind the retail losses is continued pressure on asset quality. In 2025, its retail loan non-performing rate rose to 3.23%, up 0.52 percentage points from 2024.

Postal Savings Bank’s retail loans grew only 1.53%, and its relatively weak performance was mainly driven by declines in mortgage loans and credit card loans, falling 0.37% and 12.09% respectively. This trend is also evident among state-owned large banks. Agricultural Bank of China’s 2025 corporate loans (including bills) saw an increase of 1.79 trillion yuan, while personal loans increased by only 448.5 billion yuan. CITIC Bank’s retail business saw a revenue decline of 8.53% due to the market environment.

Last year, China Merchants Bank’s retail financial business pre-tax profit was 874.17 billion yuan, down 0.65% year-on-year; its retail financial business operating income was 1852.93 billion yuan, down 3.74% year-on-year. “The growth rate of retail credit has fallen off a cliff. The retail credit card segment has been affected by changes in the market; in recent years, the proportion of revenue and profit contributions has also been declining. In addition, the wealth management business has also become a growth gap in recent years due to ongoing fee reductions for fund distribution and insurance. Therefore, we need new ideas for adjusting business structure and income structure.” China Merchants Bank’s President Wang Liang said at the earnings meeting to media including Jiemian News.

China Merchants Bank’s Vice President Huang Hongri said that the main pressure on asset quality in the bank’s large retail segment comes from credit cards, which is a common issue across the industry. Affected by external environment and other factors, some of the bank’s customers have seen income decline, and repayment capacity has become problematic. The bank expects that credit card business risk will continue to face pressure.

The situation is similar at the Hong Kong-listed Dongguan Rural Commercial Bank (09889.HK). Last year, the bank’s retail business line achieved revenue of 38.39 billion yuan, down 5.88 billion yuan from the previous year, a year-on-year decline of 13.27%, becoming the main business line dragging overall revenue growth.

A person in charge of a bank’s retail credit department told Jiemian News reporters, “In 2025, the credit card non-performing generation rate rose by nearly 2 percentage points compared with 2020. We tightened the approval policies, and this will inevitably lead to slower scale growth in the short term. On the other hand, the real estate market continues to bottom out, and the incremental growth in mortgage loans hit a near-ten-year low. The ‘ballast stone’ that supported retail growth in the past has turned into a drag.”

Keep looking for incremental growth in corporate banking

Facing dual pressures—continued narrowing of interest margins and rising retail risks—bank executives, at their earnings release meetings, have all outlined their next-step strategic directions for corporate banking. High-frequency keywords include balancing volume and price, risk control, and a light-capital transformation.

At the earnings briefing, Lü Linhua, President-designate of Zheshang Bank (601916.SH, 01916.HK), clearly stated that in the future, the bank’s corporate banking business will focus on the “new-quality Zhejiang merchants” group and increase support for new productive forces in areas such as advanced manufacturing and strategic emerging industries. At the same time, it will implement the strictest risk-control measures. The bank has already issued clear internal requirements: going forward, the rate of non-performing promotion for newly developed corporate business must be controlled within 0.05%.

Fang Weihao said that in terms of products, Ping An Bank will continue to insist on seeking space and opportunities for itself within customers’ overall transaction chains and future development cycles, further expanding the value it provides to customers.

However, Fang Weihao also acknowledged that “in corporate banking, our side regarding customers is still relatively weak. So while we develop rapidly in recent years, we still need to be cautious, tread carefully like walking on thin ice. We must keep the end in mind, learn from advanced peers, and catch up at a fast pace.”

CITIC Bank’s Vice President Gu Lingyun said that corporate banking has a solid operational foundation and strong anti-cyclical resilience. In 2026, the bank will focus on new infrastructure investment and the industrial field of “investing in people,” actively supporting projects such as the commercialization of AI, and large-scale intelligent computing clusters. At the same time, it will also pay attention to development opportunities in consumption upgrade areas such as aging, healthcare, and culture. The bank will adhere to the principles of “steady operations, structural optimization, and risk controllability.”

The above securities analysts told Jiemian News reporters that “the growth of corporate banking is, in fact, a proactive response to national strategy—shifting credit resources from traditional real estate and platform companies to technological innovation, advanced manufacturing, and green low-carbon. This is also how, during an economic downturn cycle, the industry seeks relatively safer assets.”