Without exception, Ping An Bank was also the first listed bank to release its 2025 annual report. This performance continued the downward trend seen in 2024, with performance still showing double declines.

However, at the bank’s performance briefing, management expressed optimism that the hardest moments are already behind them, and that in 2026 Ping An Bank will work hard to achieve its business goal of “returning to growth.” This means that the 2025 performance is already at the bottom of the trend.

Two straight years of double declines in performance

In 2025, Ping An Bank achieved operating income of 131.44B yuan, down 10.4% year over year. It achieved net profit of 42.63B yuan, down 4.2% year over year.

At the same time, both net interest income and net non-interest income declined year over year. In 2025, net interest income was 88.02B yuan, down 5.8% year over year; net non-interest income was 43.42B yuan, down 18.5% year over year.

The net interest margin was 1.78%, down 9 basis points compared with 2024, and the scale of lending was also relatively steady, with no major increase. Therefore, under the premise that the net interest margin is falling but the scale cannot provide strong support, the decline in interest income is evident. In terms of non-interest income, net fee and commission income fell as well, still dragged down by credit cards. The data show that in 2025, the bank’s card fee income was 12.39B yuan, down 5.9% year over year. The main reason for the decline in this item was a drop in credit card fee income. The bank’s credit card delinquency rate is relatively high. In recent years, it has also been consciously controlling the pace of its credit card business. By the end of 2025, the balance of credit card receivables was lower than at the end of the previous year. Although the delinquency rate fell by 0.32 percentage points compared with the end of the previous year, its delinquency rate level still ranked at the top among several categories of loans at the bank, at 2.24%.

Other non-interest income fell sharply year over year due to the bond market. In 2025, the bank’s other net non-interest income was 19.53B yuan, down 33.0% year over year, mainly due to market volatility, with net non-interest income from bond investment and other businesses declining.

At the performance briefing, Ji Guangheng, Party Secretary and President of Ping An Bank, said that as strategic reforms continue to deepen, some operating indicators have shown an improving trend, and in 2026 Ping An Bank will work hard to achieve its business goal of “returning to growth.”

On the one hand, the decline in its net interest margin is slowing down and showing a stable trend. The bank also said that against the backdrop of asset repricing and support for the real economy, it expects that the net interest margin will still face downward pressure, but the magnitude of the decline is expected to ease.

On the other hand, from the asset side, at the end of 2025, the bank’s total assets were 5,925.777 billion yuan, up 2.7% from the end of the previous year. At the end of the third quarter of last year, its total assets were almost unchanged compared with the beginning of the year, suggesting that in the fourth quarter it increased the pace of expanding its asset scale. The data show that in 2025, the balance of corporate loans increased by 3.5% from the end of the previous year. Of this, the balance of general corporate loans increased by 9.2% from the end of the previous year.

Investment analysts are optimistic that if the bank continues to intensify its scale expansion, its operating income in 2026 is expected to return to positive growth.

In the loan structure, the balance of personal loans decreased by 2.3% from the end of the previous year. In its annual report, the bank explained that it has continued to optimize its retail asset portfolio strategy, increase the proportion of high-quality customers, and promote a balance among “volume, pricing, and credit risk.”

Over the past two years, Ping An Bank has slowed down its efforts in retail financial services, which is related to the relatively high delinquency rate in retail financial services. Judging from the performance structure, the bank’s operating income from retail finance in 2025 was roughly on par with that of wholesale finance, and even slightly higher than wholesale finance. However, due to large provisions for credit impairment losses, the profit generated by retail finance was far lower than that of wholesale finance. The total profit of wholesale finance exceeded 36.6 billion yuan, while the total profit of retail finance was only 3.2 billion yuan—creating a huge gap.

At the performance briefing, Ji Guangheng made it clear that the bottoming-out of the retail business has basically been completed, and the first hint of dawn has appeared.

The delinquency rate on loans in the real estate sector continues to rise

One of the main reasons to believe that the retail business has basically completed its bottoming-out is the improvement in retail delinquencies.

Ping An Bank’s asset quality has continued to improve. In 2025, its delinquency rate was 1.05%, down 0.01 percentage points from the end of the previous year. Among individual loans, the delinquency rate fell significantly. By the end of 2025, it was 1.23%, down 0.16 percentage points from the end of the previous year. Compared with corporate loans, the delinquency rate on personal loans is still relatively high. The delinquency rate on corporate loans was 0.87% at the end of 2025, but it increased by 0.17 percentage points from the beginning of the year.

However, it should be noted that the bank’s provision consumption is still not low. At the end of 2025, its provision coverage ratio was 220.88%, down 29.83 percentage points from the end of the previous year. Over the past three years, the bank’s provision coverage ratio has been declining year by year. Fortunately, the provisions made in the past were sufficiently thick; otherwise, the profits would look even worse.

Noticing that the bank’s loans classified as loss continued to grow at the end of 2025 implies that provision consumption may continue as well.

The delinquency rate on real estate industry loans continues to rise. It increased by 0.43 percentage points compared with the end of the previous year, and it rose even on top of the bank’s last year restructuring of multiple real estate loans.

By the end of 2025, the bank’s balance of restructured loans was 41.12B yuan, up 9.2% from the end of the previous year. This was mainly influenced by the real estate industry, with increased risk in some real-estate-related businesses. The bank said that, in accordance with regulatory policy guidance and substantive risk judgment, it supported restructuring through measures such as extending the term of existing loans and adjusting repayment arrangements, and by implementing effective collateral, with overall risk remaining controllable.

On March 23, Wu Leiming, Deputy President and Chief Compliance Officer of Ping An Bank, said at the bank’s 2025 performance briefing that in 2025 the real estate market is still in a deep adjustment period. Companies face significant pressure on funding, and some larger private enterprises have exposed risks. Ping An Bank was also affected to a certain extent, with the real estate delinquency rate rising compared with 2024. But compared with the industry average level, Ping An Bank is still at a relatively low level.

Wu Leiming also said that in 2026 Ping An Bank will still face some pressure in the real estate sector, but overall risk is controllable.

From the perspective of corporate business, Wu Leiming said that based on the timing of risk generation, in the first quarter it was relatively concentrated; after the second quarter, whether for overdue payments or new non-performing assets, the numbers decreased, and new risky cases have been effectively controlled. The debt recovery efforts have also achieved obvious results. Therefore, his judgment is that the peak period of real estate risk generation has already passed.

From the perspective of retail business, he said that the risk in mortgage business has improved significantly. The risk-carrying modules have been effectively controlled, and incremental deployment has performed well. Wu Leiming said, “At the same time, we have continued to enhance our risk data capabilities such as anti-fraud, and the quality of newly issued loans has remained at a good level. Although risk in the retail sector has picked up, the pace of increase has slowed down, and overall risk remains controllable.”

The day before the annual report was released, the bank also received its first penalty ticket of the year. On March 20, the Jingzhou Regulatory Branch of the National Financial Regulatory Administration released an administrative penalty decision for Ping An Bank. For the main violations and irregularities including inadequate due diligence before loan issuance and inadequate post-loan management, loan funds being misappropriated, increasing customer financing costs, and insufficient management of employee conduct, the Jingzhou financial regulator fined Ping An Bank 1.05 million yuan. It warned Zhou Huilong and Tang Peng, and warned Cui Wei; it warned Xiong Haicheng and prohibited him from working in the banking industry for 2 years.

Evidently, the bank still has significant gaps in compliance management and needs to strengthen it.

In addition, if in 2026 Ping An Bank plans to expand its asset scale, although its current level of capital adequacy ratio meets requirements, it appears not to be “thick” enough. At the end of 2025, its core tier-one capital adequacy ratio, tier-one capital adequacy ratio, and capital adequacy ratio were 9.36%, 11.49%, and 13.77%, respectively.

Over the past few years, Ping An Bank has often mentioned benchmarking against China Merchants Bank, but it seems this year’s performance briefing did not mention it. Compared with China Merchants Bank, its capital adequacy ratios are weaker than those of China Merchants Bank. As of the end of last year’s third quarter, under the weighted approach, China Merchants Bank’s core tier-one capital adequacy ratio was 11.99%, its tier-one capital adequacy ratio was 13.99%, and its capital adequacy ratio was 15.07%. Although China Merchants Bank will only publish its annual report next week, based on the level at the end of the third quarter last year, we can infer that its capital adequacy ratio at the end of 2025 will not change too much, and will be clearly higher and thicker than Ping An Bank’s.

2026 is the opening year of the “15th Five-Year Plan into the 2025-2029 period,” and Ping An Bank has set “China’s most outstanding and globally leading intelligent retail bank” as its strategic goal, with the strategic approach of “strengthen retail, refine wholesale, and specialize in peers.” The positioning is high and large enough, but achieving those strategic objectives will be very difficult as well.

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