Goldman Sachs has issued a research report stating that the Chinese banking sector continues to face growth challenges due to slowing credit expansion. However, the firm expects the performance divergence among individual stocks to accelerate in the second half of the year, primarily driven by balance sheet resilience. Large banks remain the preferred choice, with China Construction Bank (00939) and Bank of China (03988) being favored.

The investment bank maintains a "Buy" rating on China Merchants Bank (03968) but has lowered its net profit forecasts for 2026 and 2027 by 2% each, citing a focus on whether the bank's asset quality can improve.

Goldman Sachs forecasts that the average pre-provision operating profit and net profit growth for the banks it covers in the second quarter will be 5% and 3%, respectively, with large banks still expected to outperform their peers.