CMB President discusses the decline in average return on net assets: a 10% threshold should be used as the baseline for proper management

On March 30, Wang Liang, President of China Merchants Bank, said at the bank’s 2025 performance briefing that China Merchants Bank has faced significant pressure in recent years to grow revenue. In 2025, it achieved a 0.01% revenue increase—after revenue had fallen by 1.46% and 0.48% in 2023 and 2024 respectively, it finally returned to positive growth. “This result is only a slight increase, but it has not been easy to achieve, and it also shows that China Merchants Bank’s overall operating income growth still has strong resilience.”

When asked about the reasons for the pressure on China Merchants Bank’s revenue growth in the past, Wang Liang said that China Merchants Bank’s previous advantage lay in its retail banking business, but in recent years, the retail business has been hit the hardest by external policies and market changes. Therefore, China Merchants Bank has made up for the gap through other business segments, and this year it finally achieved positive revenue growth.

When asked about this year’s revenue and profit growth targets, Wang Liang said that based on China Merchants Bank’s various operating indicators, the bank will be proactive, take initiative, and act. “As for operating targets, first is customer base growth, second is deposit and loan growth, and third is AUM growth. We need to take initiative and maintain a relatively fast growth rate—this is the prerequisite for achieving growth in financial indicators. In terms of growth in financial indicators, I feel that our expectations this year will trend toward stability and be favorable overall, with improvement within stability.”

In 2025, China Merchants Bank’s average return on equity attributable to ordinary shareholders (ROAE) was 13.44%, down 1.05 percentage points year over year.

Wang Liang said that from the board of directors to management, they place great importance on maintaining a relatively high ROAE level. A higher ROAE can deliver more substantial returns to investors, so China Merchants Bank has also strengthened ROAE management to enhance the bank’s overall capital return level. However, it is still expected that there will be a downward trend in ROAE.

“We will manage the pace of ROAE decline. We will use 10% as the baseline to manage the level of ROAE, because I believe that only a bank that maintains an ROAE of above 10% can create relatively good returns for shareholders.” Wang Liang said.