CITIC Bank's Total Assets Exceed 1 Trillion Yuan in 2025, Clearly Transitioning from AI Priority to AI Acceleration

AI Inquiry · How can CITIC Bank’s AI acceleration transform to improve financial service efficiency?

China Net Finance and Economics, March 23 — CITIC Bank recently announced its 2025 performance report. During the reporting period, the bank’s net profit attributable to shareholders was 70.618 billion yuan, a 2.98% increase year-over-year, with the growth rate improving by 0.7 percentage points compared to last year; total assets surpassed 10 trillion yuan for the first time; and non-performing loan ratio has decreased for seven consecutive years to 1.15%.

On March 23, CITIC Bank held a performance briefing, with Chairman Fang Heying and senior management present, explaining the growth logic behind the 2025 results and the next phase of development.

Six Highlights Explaining 2025 Performance Growth

Looking at CITIC Bank’s 2025 results, profitability steadily improved, marking a successful conclusion to the 14th Five-Year Plan. Fang Heying summarized the overall picture with six key points:

1. Net profit increased by nearly 3%, ranking among the top in large and medium-sized banks; dividend payout ratio increased by 1.2 percentage points to 31.7% from a high level in 2024, allowing shareholders to share in CITIC Bank’s growth dividends.

2. A stable income and cost reduction strategy opened growth space and demonstrated resilience. First, from stable net interest margin to stable revenue, interest spread gradually stabilized, and revenue decline narrowed, supported by the release of investment transaction capabilities and continuous growth in fee income, contributing steadily to growth. Second, non-performing loan ratio has decreased for seven years in a row, with the ratio of special mention and overdue loans declining from the beginning of the year. In 2025, the bank recovered 37.2 billion yuan of bad debts, including 12.9 billion yuan from asset disposals, and the full-year loan cost rate decreased by 0.07 percentage points, making a key contribution to growth. Third, from controlling costs to reducing operational costs, the bank achieved a total reduction of 2.25 billion yuan in operating expenses, with the cost-to-income ratio decreasing by 0.88 percentage points, significantly supporting growth.

3. Balance management of liabilities in volume and price, promoting the formation of a true buffer against low interest rate shocks. The deposit structure is relatively reasonable, with 46% of corporate demand deposits, ranking among the top in joint-stock banks; development pathways are clear, with short-term reliance on assessments, medium-term on products, and long-term on systems and capabilities.

4. The further validation of the light-capital transformation strategy. Years ago, CITIC Bank proposed a “three-light” strategy, prioritizing intermediate income as a core focus. In practice, CITIC Bank is the only peer bank to achieve six consecutive years of positive non-interest income growth. Over five years, non-interest income share increased by 9.3 percentage points; last year, fee income reached 32.77 billion yuan, up 5.6%, outperforming peers by 2.2 percentage points, ranking second in total and growth rate.

5. Further solidification of asset quality foundation. CITIC Bank has reduced its non-performing rate for six consecutive years, with a provision coverage ratio maintained above 200%. This is based on a risk management system that is “powerful for development and effective for risk control.” Additionally, the bank has increased its risk absorption capacity while generating revenue, provisioning 66 billion yuan annually over five years to absorb bad debts.

6. Continued high-intensity technological investment is accelerating into productivity. Leading technology is no longer just a slogan but a state. CITIC Bank’s current technology strategy is shifting from AI priority to AI acceleration.

Four Aspects Continuously Improving Risk Management

In recent years, external environments have changed dramatically, and domestic challenges have increased. Facing complex and severe conditions, CITIC Bank’s management has repeatedly stated at performance releases that “risk is not sacrificed for short-term gains.” Data shows that CITIC Bank’s asset quality remained stable overall in 2025, with a non-performing loan ratio of 1.15% at year-end, down 0.01 percentage points from the previous year, continuing a seven-year decline; the provision coverage ratio has remained above 200% for four consecutive years.

Vice President Jin Xinian said that behind these figures is the bank’s strategic focus and deep cultivation of system and capability building over recent years.

1. Keeping pace with the times to build a risk control system, adhering to effective risk management and strong development promotion, continuously optimizing the risk control system. Using the implementation of advanced capital measurement methods as an opportunity, the bank has refined its digital risk control system, successfully completed two rounds of on-site evaluations, and strengthened quantitative models and data foundations. It promotes integrated “audit, management, and inspection,” deepens the specialized approval system and professional management of problematic assets, ensuring professionals handle specialized tasks. Risk embedded in retail, inclusive finance, and financial markets businesses is strengthened, with dedicated credit risk managers, enhancing joint prevention and control of business and risk.

2. “Five strategies in one” for optimal structure. CITIC Bank emphasizes that good structure accelerates development, while poor structure hampers it, forming a distinctive “five strategies in one” approach to asset allocation. Industry-wise, it seizes the transformation of new and old kinetic energy, supporting the five major financial articles; at the same time, it accelerates structural adjustments. The bank was among the earliest to recognize the turning point in the real estate market, adjusting credit strategies timely, reducing real estate loans from a peak of 17% to 9%, with less impact among peers. Manufacturing loans now account for 21%, becoming the largest sector. Regionally, the bank focuses on Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Chengdu-Chongqing, and other key areas, with regional concentration significantly optimized. Customer-wise, the proportion of supported clients has reached 73%, with continued improvement and a notable decrease in customer concentration.

3. Precise policy implementation and strengthened management. The bank has reconstructed its corporate credit management system, fully strengthening consolidated credit management, focusing on “controlling new and clearing old” risks. For new loans, proactive post-loan management is emphasized, with a focus on customer classification. In 2025, the bank proactively withdrew over 50 billion yuan of low-quality exposures. For clearing old risks, it enhances lean disposal, recovering 24.4 billion yuan in on-balance sheet and asset management collections, with 12.9 billion yuan written off, continuously contributing to profits.

Regarding the next phase, Jin Xinian pointed out that CITIC Bank will maintain strategic focus and implement systematic measures to further enhance risk management in four areas: First, uphold the system as the foundation, continuously advancing integrated risk control, approval, post-loan management, and risk assessment systems, promoting productivity through institutional reforms, and actively meeting the standards of advanced legal frameworks; Second, focus on structure, targeting three major areas for corporate business and five key scenarios, including traditional industry transformation, strategic emerging industries, future industries, and large consumer markets, as well as technology, green finance, capital markets, M&A, cross-border, and supply chain scenarios. The bank will also continue optimizing the real estate and local government investment structures. Retail will focus on new consumer demands, strengthening integrated lending and customer acquisition; Third, prioritize quality, proactively deepen customer classification and post-loan management, increase efforts to withdraw low-quality clients, and implement multiple measures to resolve risks in key areas; Fourth, strengthen management, enhance full-process credit management and intelligent risk control, and improve core risk management competitiveness.

From AI Support to AI Native in the 14th Five-Year Plan

Currently, a new wave of technological revolution and industrial transformation is deepening. Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology is gradually penetrating all aspects of financial services, becoming a key driver of high-quality industry development. Vice President Gu Lingyun introduced that CITIC Bank’s recent efforts in digital banking strategy have embedded technological capabilities into core business processes, delivering tangible productivity in cost reduction, efficiency increase, risk control, and customer experience.

In corporate banking, the “Galaxy System” has achieved global unified credit, solving industry risk control challenges. Credit products are now more flexible, with new product launches shortened from one or two months to 1-2 weeks, and system issue resolution times reduced from days to hours. Over 90% of customer manager inquiries are answered by AI, greatly reducing labor costs.

In retail banking, mainstream strategies are deployed on a strategy management platform, which averages over 2,300 strategies per month, reaching approximately 35.5 million retail customers monthly, significantly increasing outreach. Precise matching of customers and products has greatly reduced repetitive marketing, with effective customer engagement increasing by 30% year-over-year.

In financial markets, CITIC Bank relies on its self-developed centralized quantitative trading platform, with overall automation exceeding 80%. It was among the first to introduce large models to generate quantitative strategies, tripling R&D efficiency, accurately capturing cross-market arbitrage opportunities, and executing fully automated orders with millisecond-level algorithms, avoiding delays caused by manual operations, with daily trading volume over ten times that of 2024. AI-powered quotation robots now cover currency, derivatives, bonds, and foreign exchange markets, increasing efficiency by over five times and boosting trading volume by 25%. The bank’s proprietary valuation algorithms for foreign exchange options, structured deposits, and other derivatives significantly reduce reliance on foreign models, saving over one million yuan annually.

Looking ahead to 2026 and the “14th Five-Year Plan,” Gu Lingyun clarified that CITIC Bank will continue to pursue a strong technological strategy, focusing on four key initiatives: First, streamline organizational operations, continuously upgrade the domain system, promote deep integration of business, technology, data, and intelligence, build more responsive digital teams, deepen industry-academia-research collaborations, and jointly tackle core AI technologies. Second, improve data utilization by advancing the “Data Elements ×” initiative, building high-quality data foundations, shifting work modes from experience-based to data-driven, and truly enabling data to drive business. Third, embed AI into every aspect, implementing a comprehensive AI action plan led directly by senior management, aiming to permeate all business decisions and operations within two years. By the end of the “14th Five-Year Plan,” the goal is to achieve AI transformation of over 90% of core business processes, crossing from AI support to AI native. Fourth, strengthen security barriers by proactively deploying intelligent computing power, adopting new security technologies, and ensuring AI applications are safe, trustworthy, and controllable.