CITIC Bank has taken the lead in announcing its 2025 annual performance report after joining the "10 trillion yuan club." On March 20, China Citic Bank Corporation Limited (601998.SH) disclosed that for the full year of 2025, the bank achieved operating revenue of 212.475 billion yuan, a decrease of 0.55% compared to the previous year. Its net profit attributable to shareholders reached 70.618 billion yuan, marking a growth of 2.98% year-on-year.
The most notable highlight of CITIC Bank's annual report is the step-like jump in its asset scale. By the end of 2025, the bank's total assets amounted to 10.13 trillion yuan, an increase of 6.28% from the end of the previous year. It now forms the "10 trillion yuan tier" of joint-stock banks together with China Merchants Bank, Industrial Bank, and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank. Over the past five years, CITIC Bank's total asset growth has remained relatively stable. Although the growth rate declined for four consecutive years previously, the overall trend has been smooth, without significant fluctuations. Moreover, after four consecutive years of declining growth rates, the bank's asset scale growth rate showed a rebound trend in 2025.
However, in terms of revenue performance, CITIC Bank slightly lagged behind the other three joint-stock banks in the "10 trillion yuan" tier. According to earlier performance forecasts, the revenue growth rates for China Merchants Bank, Industrial Bank, and Shanghai Pudong Development Bank in 2025 were 0.01%, 0.24%, and 1.88% respectively, making CITIC Bank the only one among them to experience a decline. In recent years, CITIC Bank has consistently adhered to a balanced, stable, and sustainable main theme, making the revenue decline somewhat expected.
Compared to revenue growth, CITIC Bank has achieved positive net profit growth for five consecutive years, which is relatively rare among joint-stock banks. Chairman Fang Heying also stated in the annual report message that the bank's net profit achieved a "triple jump" of 50 billion, 60 billion, and 70 billion yuan within five years, making it one of the few joint-stock banks to achieve positive growth for five consecutive years.
It is worth noting that CITIC Bank's dividend payout for 2025 reached a new high. According to the profit distribution plan, the bank plans to distribute a cash dividend of 1.93 yuan per share (before tax), with total annual cash dividends amounting to 10.74 billion yuan. Combined with the interim cash dividend of 10.461 billion yuan already distributed, the total cash payout for the year reaches 21.201 billion yuan.
In fact, as a leading joint-stock bank, CITIC Bank's dividend payout ratio has been significantly lower than that of China Merchants Bank. In recent years, China Merchants Bank's annual cash dividend ratio has consistently remained above 30%, while CITIC Bank's ratio has not reached 30% since 2017. For the 2025 fiscal year, the dividend payout ratio for CITIC Bank's two cash distributions reached 30.02%, with both the dividend amount and the ratio setting new records over the past decade, indicating a significant improvement in attractiveness.
Net interest income experienced a slight decline. Under CITIC Bank's balanced, stable, and sustainable operational philosophy, the year 2025 again resulted in a performance report showing "profit growth without revenue growth." This marks the second revenue decline in nearly five years, following a 2.6% drop in 2023.
The growth in CITIC Bank's net profit was primarily achieved through some adjustment via provisions. In 2025, CITIC Bank set aside impairment losses of 58.172 billion yuan, accounting for 27.38% of its operating revenue. From 2021 to 2024, the proportion of impairment losses to operating revenue was 37.67%, 33.78%, 30.21%, and 28.6% respectively. This indicates that in an environment of persistently narrowing net interest margins in the banking sector, reducing provisions to adjust profits has become an important means of stabilizing profits.
The continuous narrowing of net interest margins was a common pressure faced by the banking sector in 2025, and CITIC Bank was no exception. By the end of 2025, CITIC Bank's net interest margin stood at 1.63%, a decrease of 14 basis points from the end of the previous year. Last year, the bank's net interest income was 144.469 billion yuan, a decrease of 1.51% compared to the previous year, while its net non-interest income reached 68.006 billion yuan, an increase of 1.55% year-on-year.
The magnitudes of the decline and increase in the two main net income components were roughly similar. However, since the base of net interest income is larger, the growth in net non-interest income could not fully offset the decline in the former. Simultaneously, CITIC Bank has been reducing costs to ensure enhanced profit margins. In 2025, the bank's operating expenses totaled 128.801 billion yuan, a decrease of 2.95% year-on-year. Among these, business and management expenses were 67.159 billion yuan, a reduction of 2.251 billion yuan or 3.24% compared to the previous year.
In terms of asset quality, CITIC Bank's performance is commendable. By the end of 2025, the bank's non-performing loan (NPL) ratio was 1.15%, down by 0.01 percentage points from the end of 2024, marking the seventh consecutive year of decline.
Regarding CITIC Bank's operational strategy for 2026, Fang Heying mentioned at the performance conference that the bank will focus on adjusting its structure, consolidating its strengths, enhancing its distinctive features, and prioritizing key areas as its main operational approach. For structural adjustment, CITIC Bank will continue to strengthen its risk management philosophy and strategies based on structural fundamentals. For consolidating strengths, it will further build a liability growth model supported by payment settlement and transactions under a new balance of volume and price, solidifying the foundation for liability costs. For enhancing distinctive features, it will leverage its comprehensive financial service model to amplify its differentiated competitive advantages. Regarding prioritizing key areas, the bank will focus on several business growth points with solid foundations, good market prospects, and high value. Capital market business, cross-border finance, investment and trading capabilities, wealth management, risk mitigation, and recovery will all become important sources for CITIC Bank's future growth.
Retail segment's contribution to profits plummets. Fang Heying stated at the performance conference that CITIC Bank's overarching development framework is "corporate banking shouldering the main burden, retail banking stabilizing contributions, financial markets increasing income, and risk control creating value." However, the retail banking business currently remains challenging. Among CITIC Bank's three major segments in 2025, the corporate banking segment reported net operating revenue of 91.93 billion yuan, an increase of 2.18%. The financial markets segment reported net operating revenue of 28.059 billion yuan, an increase of 4.95% compared to the previous year. In contrast, the retail banking segment was the only one to decline, with net revenue of 74.843 billion yuan, a decrease of 8.53% year-on-year.
Although retail banking remains an important strategic direction for CITIC Bank, its pre-tax profit from retail banking has declined for four consecutive years since 2022. From 2021 to 2024, the pre-tax profits for CITIC Bank's retail banking segment were 22.704 billion yuan, 17.38 billion yuan, 15.935 billion yuan, and 9.23 billion yuan respectively. In 2025, the pre-tax profit for the retail banking segment was 5.303 billion yuan, a sharp decrease of 42.55% year-on-year. Its proportion of total profits plummeted from 34.6% in 2021 to just 6.3%.
Currently, the retail business of domestic commercial banks is undergoing structural adjustments. Credit card business, as one of the core segments, is also entering a phase of deep optimization. Based on the operational data disclosed by CITIC Bank for 2025, its credit card business exhibits characteristics of "volume increase with quality adjustment." By the end of 2025, the bank's cumulative credit card issuance reached 129 million cards, an increase of 4.60% from the end of the previous year. However, the outstanding balance of credit card-related loans was 462.117 billion yuan, a decrease of 5.28% year-on-year, indicating an overall contraction in asset scale. For the full year in terms of transactions, CITIC Bank's total credit card transaction volume was 2.18 trillion yuan, a decrease of 10.66% year-on-year. The corresponding credit card business revenue was 47.749 billion yuan, a significant decline of 14.60% compared to the previous year. Observing a longer period, since 2023, the bank's credit card transaction volume and operating income have maintained a downward trend for three consecutive years, highlighting increasing industry growth pressures and the need for business transformation.
Compared to the overall decline in NPLs, the NPL ratio for CITIC Bank's personal loans still warrants attention. In 2025, the bank's personal loan NPL ratio increased from 1.25% to 1.32%. Within this, the NPL ratio for personal consumption loans rose by 0.66 percentage points year-on-year to 2.80%, and the credit card NPL ratio was 2.62%, an increase of 0.12 percentage points compared to the previous year.
The bank's Chief Risk Officer Jin Xinian stated that since 2024, facing the industry-wide trend of retail risk, the bank has been continuously enhancing its capabilities in independent customer acquisition and risk control by implementing a combined business and risk prevention and control mechanism and strengthening the management of the entire credit granting process. The risk trends for major products are improving, and the bank is confident in achieving a stabilization of retail asset quality as soon as possible.