Mainland Chinese bank shares listed in Hong Kong saw their losses deepen in the afternoon session.

At the time of writing, BANK OF CHINA (03988) was down 5.5%, trading at HK$4.98.

ABC (01288) fell 3.23% to HK$5.40.

ICBC (01398) declined 2.51% to HK$6.60.

CCB (00939) dropped 2.47% to HK$8.28.

The movement follows a report from the National Audit Office, which was presented to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on June 23rd, detailing the audit of the execution of the central budget and other fiscal revenues and expenditures for 2025. The report named approximately seven financial institutions.

Among them, ABC was cited for insufficient pre-loan review procedures, having improperly issued loans totaling 11.066 billion yuan to projects not meeting high-standard farmland criteria, with some funds being diverted to purchase wealth management products or repay debts.

BANK OF CHINA was noted for exploiting a preferential tax policy for public offering funds to evade 2.367 billion yuan in taxes.

Dongxing Securities pointed out that since the start of 2026, the banking sector index has fallen by 2.4%, underperforming the Shanghai Composite Index by 8.8 percentage points and ranking near the bottom among industry indices.

From an absolute return perspective, the primary concern stems from worries over a ceiling on profitability due to pressured scale growth amid weak effective financing demand in the real economy.

From a relative return standpoint, performance has been mainly influenced by overall market risk appetite.

The sector demonstrated some defensive characteristics during April and May this year, largely reflecting its perceived safety during periods of increased market volatility and a contraction in risk appetite.