Chasing Ant Fund, China Merchants Bank has done its best

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Produced by | Miaotou APP

Author | Liu Guohui

Editor | Ding Ping

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The leading pattern of fund sales is further consolidating.

Recently, the Asset Management Association of China announced the public fund sales and holdings scale of fund sales institutions for the second half of 2025. The pattern remains a dual dominance between China Merchants Bank and Ant Fund.

Benefiting from the bullish market in 2025, Ant Fund’s equity fund holdings reached 1.0178 trillion yuan, surpassing the one-trillion mark for the first time; China Merchants Bank’s equity fund holdings also exceeded 600 billion yuan.

On one side, internet platform giants continue to expand their lead. Ant Fund remains the absolute leader, ranking first in non-cash fund size, equity fund size, and index fund size, and is the only institution in the industry with equity assets exceeding one trillion yuan.

On the other side, bank channels rely on their initial launch and asset allocation capabilities to maintain their position. China Merchants Bank has strengthened its fund initial launch advantage and asset allocation ability, resulting in good growth in fund holdings during the bull market.

How these two giants will compete in fund sales in the future remains a key focus of the industry.

China Merchants Bank’s series of measures are beginning to show results.

Wind data shows that the scale of FOF funds has already reached 305.814 billion yuan, an increase of 61.6 billion yuan from the end of 2025, making it a rapidly growing fund category.

The main driver behind the booming FOF funds is China Merchants Bank.

In last year’s Miaotou article, we mentioned that facing Ant Wealth’s cliff-like lead in fund sales, China Merchants Bank’s core strategy since 2024 has been to consolidate its traditional advantages in high-net-worth clients and stable products, strengthen asset allocation capabilities, and improve client profitability and ratios.

Specific actions include launching the “TREE Long-term Growth Plan,” selecting low-volatility FOF products for promotion, creating multiple popular products, and nearly driving the growth of FOF fund scale single-handedly. Seeing the results, this year, two major banks—Construction Bank and Bank of China—followed suit, launching the “Long Prosperity Plan” and “HuiTou Plan,” both focusing on FOF products to provide asset allocation solutions and enhance their influence in fund sales.

In addition to promoting FOFs, China Merchants Bank also launched the “Morning Star Plan” for equity products, dividing them into “Stability Seekers” and “Profit Seekers” based on customer preferences, corresponding to funds with good drawdown control and funds with higher return potential. The bank also strengthened sales of bond funds.

As a result of these efforts, China Merchants Bank’s fund sales data has improved significantly.

Comparison of different types of fund sales institutions

From non-cash fund holdings to equity fund holdings, China Merchants Bank’s growth rate exceeds that of Ant Fund, especially in non-cash funds including bonds and FOFs, with a growth rate nearly 5 percentage points higher.

In terms of equity funds, although Ant Fund’s clients are more active during the bull market, China Merchants Bank’s high-net-worth advantage is evident. Coupled with the “Morning Star Plan” tailored for different client needs, China Merchants Bank’s growth rate also surpasses Ant’s. This indicates that China Merchants Bank’s series of measures are working, further solidifying its position in the fund sales industry and maintaining its pace in catching up with Ant Fund.

China Merchants Bank’s third-quarter data also shows that in the first three quarters of 2025, its agency fund income reached 4.167 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 38.76%, mainly driven by growth in equity fund holdings and sales.

Compared to Tiantian Fund, China Merchants Bank’s growth is significantly better. Although Tiantian Fund’s scale is smaller than China Merchants Bank’s, its growth rate lags behind, indicating that the dual-strong pattern in fund sales continues to strengthen. Securities channels benefited notably during the bull market, with CITIC Securities showing rapid growth, but their absolute scale remains far behind China Merchants Bank and Ant Fund.

However, China Merchants Bank’s issue lies in its performance in stock index funds, where it still has little to show, maintaining a leading position only among bank institutions. Its scale is far below Ant Fund, and its growth rate is also lower than Ant’s. Compared to Tiantian Fund and CITIC Securities, it also lags behind. It seems China Merchants Bank has yet to find ways to enhance its influence in index funds, remaining in a “disengaged” state.

Additionally, although China Merchants Bank’s non-cash fund and equity fund growth rates are higher, its overall size is still smaller than Ant’s, so faster growth is expected and not surprising. In absolute incremental scale, Ant still surpasses China Merchants Bank.

Data shows that in the second half of 2025, Ant’s incremental holdings in equity funds, non-cash funds, and stock index funds were 194.9 billion yuan, 242.3 billion yuan, and 91.5 billion yuan respectively. China Merchants Bank’s increments were 118.4 billion yuan, 206.5 billion yuan, and 15.1 billion yuan.

In absolute terms, the gap between Ant and China Merchants Bank is widening. To narrow this gap, China Merchants Bank needs higher growth rates.

Ant’s advantages are hard to break

China Merchants Bank is closely following Ant, preventing Ant Funds from “resting on its laurels.”

Ant continues leveraging its traffic advantage to strengthen its lead across multiple fund segments. As of the end of last year, the total non-cash fund size in the market was about 22 trillion yuan, with Ant Funds holding approximately 1.8 trillion yuan, accounting for over 8%.

Last year, Ant Funds launched the “Index+” platform, focusing not only on broad-based and sector indices but also on index-enhanced funds, creating visual “investment maps” for broad, sector, and style indices, lowering barriers to understanding and driving continuous growth in index fund holdings. The index-enhanced funds promoted by Ant reached a total market size of around 270 billion yuan by the end of 2025, with significant growth.

Amid the sharp rise in gold prices, Ant Funds placed gold investments prominently on their app, promoting not only bank-partnered gold investment products but also strengthening the promotion of gold ETFs. Data shows that by early October 2025, over 8.9 million users had initiated gold ETF fund regular investments on the platform, boosting the scale.

For stable appreciation needs, Ant Funds offers a conservative financial segment with layered options: for funds with strict principal safety requirements, they recommend products with a 100% positive return history; for those seeking higher returns on a stable basis, they recommend “Fixed Income+” funds with some equity exposure; for intermediate needs, they suggest funds with lower equity holdings.

In the equity segment, Ant Funds has many active traders and prefers flexible products. They recommend based on investment themes such as AI computing power, storage chips, and power grid equipment, which have been popular sectors since last year. For stability-focused investors, “Ant Wealth Gold Selection” added the “Rise and Resist” track, mainly recommending relatively low-volatility actively managed funds.

Additionally, Ant Funds has strengthened its layout in the new fund issuance market, raising capital for C-class shares of new funds.

Overall, Ant Funds’ advantages include not only its traditional traffic barrier and low fees but also its comprehensive product layout, layered customer needs operation, interpretation of investment trends, and community building, all with strategic planning. This solidifies its position in the fund distribution field.

Data shows that in the first half of 2025, Ant Funds’ operating income was 9.251 billion yuan, with a net profit of 434 million yuan. Based on the trend, performance in the second half should also be strong.

For Ant Funds, the main challenge lies in its customer base: on one hand, it lacks sufficient coverage of high-end clients and its service capacity is inferior to China Merchants Bank. The black card benefits were once highly discussed; on the other hand, due to broad coverage, many investors are novices with less experience, more herd mentality, lower risk tolerance, prone to chasing gains and selling at lows, which can lead to high trading activity but weak holding discipline and large scale fluctuations.

Earlier this year, Debon Fund’s Debon Stable Growth Flexible Allocation Hybrid was sold in huge volumes through Ant Funds channels, with many investors following financial influencers to buy. Serving such a customer base is not easy.

Moreover, as an industry leader, Ant must continue strengthening its investment research to develop stronger asset allocation and product screening capabilities that match its industry position.

Differentiation in the dual-hero pattern

Looking at the fund sales landscape, whether it’s big banks like ICBC and CCB, securities firms like CITIC and Huatai, or internet platforms like Tiantian Fund and Teng’an Fund, there are still clear gaps compared to Ant Funds and China Merchants Bank. The industry is likely to continue the “Ant leading in scale, China Merchants Bank maintaining value” dual-hero pattern.

However, their competition will not be direct head-to-head fighting but more about differentiated roles.

Ant relies on Alipay’s ecosystem and traffic advantages to maintain its scale leadership, while China Merchants Bank leverages high-net-worth AUM and asset allocation strength to protect profits and barriers.

Customer differences mean it’s difficult for both to truly invade each other’s core markets.

Ant’s customer base mainly consists of long-tail, young, inclusive, traffic-driven users, with future expansion into middle class, but it’s unlikely to capture ultra-high-net-worth individuals. China Merchants Bank, on the other hand, focuses on high-net-worth, Golden Flower clients, and business owners, making it impossible to replicate Ant’s traffic scale.

In terms of products and sectors, as leading platforms, both have broad coverage but are expected to develop areas where they have advantages, engaging in niche competition.

Since last year, Ant Funds has focused on promoting index-enhanced funds, while China Merchants Bank has aggressively developed FOF products. These strategies are based on their respective platform strengths and customer needs, without deeply encroaching on each other’s core areas. Both occupy their most suitable ecosystems, coexisting long-term with differentiated leadership.

In terms of holdings scale, it’s expected that Ant Funds can maintain a leading position in the medium to long term, with the gap not narrowing quickly, thanks to its ecosystem, traffic, fee advantages, scenarios, and user base. The trend toward indexation continues to favor Ant.

China Merchants Bank, with its high AUM, low volatility, and cross-selling in comprehensive finance, remains ahead and difficult to displace. For China Merchants Bank, future goals in fund sales may not be to surpass Ant in scale but to consolidate its position in the fund sector, supporting key business lines like wealth management, retail banking, and private banking.