A leadership reshuffle is looming at Bank of Tianjin (HKEX: 01578), with the 969.5 billion yuan lender potentially welcoming its youngest-ever top executive.
On October 1, 2026, the Organization Department of the Tianjin Municipal Party Committee issued a pre-appointment public notice for municipal-level cadres, announcing that Yang Yi, Deputy Party Secretary and President of Tianjin Rural Commercial Bank, is proposed to serve as Party Secretary of a municipal-level enterprise and is expected to be appointed as Chairman of the board of such an enterprise.
According to multiple sources familiar with the matter, the enterprise Yang Yi will join is Bank of Tianjin (HKEX: 01578), while the bank's current Party Secretary and Chairman, Yu Jianzhong, will submit his resignation. If the 49-year-old Yang Yi takes office smoothly, he will become the youngest chairman in the history of Bank of Tianjin (HKEX: 01578). However, as of now, Bank of Tianjin (HKEX: 01578) has not yet issued a formal announcement regarding the personnel change.
Behind the leadership change, Bank of Tianjin (HKEX: 01578) stands at the critical threshold of one trillion yuan in assets, while simultaneously facing multiple challenges including sluggish revenue growth, diverging asset quality, and pressure on capital replenishment.
A New Chairman on the Horizon
Current Chairman Yu Jianzhong was born in July 1970 and is now 56 years old. He graduated from the School of Economics and Management at Beijing Agricultural University in 1995 with a major in finance and a minor in computer science. After graduation, he worked at Agricultural Bank of China for more than 20 years. During that period, from September 2000 to October 2006, he pursued an in-service combined master's and doctoral program in agricultural economic management at Nanjing Agricultural University, earning a doctoral degree in management. In May 2018, he left the banking industry and joined Evergrande Group as Vice President, but departed after only half a year. In November of the same year, he joined China Overseas Holdings Group, where he successively served as Deputy Party Secretary, Vice President, and President. In 2020, Yu Jianzhong returned to the banking sector, subsequently holding positions including Deputy Party Secretary, President, Party Secretary, and Chairman at Tianjin Rural Commercial Bank. Starting from August 2023, Yu Jianzhong served as Chairman of Bank of Tianjin (HKEX: 01578), a position he has held for just over three years. In April 2025, Yu Jianzhong was re-elected as an executive director and Chairman of the bank's eighth board of directors for a three-year term, which should expire in April 2028. He has not yet reached retirement age. Before Yu Jianzhong, the two previous chairmen of Bank of Tianjin (HKEX: 01578), Li Zongtang and Sun Liguo, both resigned upon reaching retirement age. Only in August 2016 did then-56-year-old Chairman Yuan Fuhua resign due to a work transfer. If Yang Yi assumes the new post, Bank of Tianjin (HKEX: 01578) will have changed its top leader three times within six years. Yu Jianzhong's predecessor, Sun Liguo, became chairman in August 2020 and retired in May 2023.
Yang Yi, born in October 1976, is 49 years old this year. He holds a master's degree in business administration and a senior economist title, with a career spanning large state-owned banks, joint-stock banks, and rural commercial banks. He long served at the Tianjin Branch of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, holding positions including Assistant to the President of Xiqing Sub-branch, Deputy President of Heping Sub-branch, and General Manager of the Credit Approval Department. In 2016, he moved to the Tianjin Branch of Bank of Shanghai as Deputy President. At the end of 2019, Tianjin Rural Commercial Bank publicly recruited senior executives, and Yang Yi was appointed as Deputy President of the bank. In April 2020, he received regulatory approval to serve as Deputy President of Tianjin Rural Commercial Bank, and in April 2024, he was promoted to President of the bank. If his appointment to Bank of Tianjin (HKEX: 01578) materializes, Yang Yi will become the youngest chairman in the bank's history.
During Yang Yi's tenure as President of Tianjin Rural Commercial Bank, both its scale and asset quality reached new heights. As of the end of 2025, the bank's total assets exceeded 500 billion yuan for the first time, reaching 501.427 billion yuan, up 10.13% from the end of the previous year, and further increased to 517.832 billion yuan in the first half of 2026. In terms of performance, the bank achieved operating revenue of 9.473 billion yuan in 2025, up 1.2% year-on-year, and net profit attributable to shareholders of 3.032 billion yuan, up 2.92% year-on-year. This marked the sixth consecutive year of steady net profit growth. Entering the first half of 2026, the bank's operating revenue was 5.354 billion yuan, up 0.89% year-on-year, and net profit was 1.685 billion yuan, up 2.12% year-on-year. Although the increment was modest, the bank maintained positive growth amid overall pressure on rural commercial banks.
The non-performing loan ratio of Tianjin Rural Commercial Bank also showed a year-by-year declining trend: 2.48% at the end of 2021, dropping to 1.92% at the end of 2022, further to 1.66% at the end of 2023, 1.5% at the end of 2024, and 1.34% at the end of 2025. Entering 2026, the downward trend continued, with the NPL ratio further dropping to 1.3% at the end of June. The improvement in the provision coverage ratio was equally notable. At the end of 2023, the bank's provision coverage ratio was around 173%, which significantly increased to 200.27% at the end of 2024, up 26.85 percentage points year-on-year. It continued to climb to 225.26% at the end of 2025 and reached 250.76% at the end of June 2026, up 34.2 percentage points from the same period in 2025. A provision level above 250% is considered a fairly ample range within the rural commercial banking system.
During Yang Yi's tenure as President of Tianjin Rural Commercial Bank, the bank focused on areas including technology finance, green finance, and digital finance. In the technology sector, it primarily provided comprehensive investment-loan-equity-bond financial services to technology enterprises and completed its first investment-loan linkage business with Haitang Fund. As of the end of June 2026, the bank's loan balance supporting technology enterprises was 21.96 billion yuan, up 1.089 billion yuan from the beginning of the year. In green finance, relying on a green-plus service mechanism, it expanded emerging businesses such as blue finance and circular industries, conducted list-based matchmaking around key industries such as energy conservation and carbon reduction and environmental protection, and built the country's first "Sustainable Finance Intelligent Assistant" system. As of the end of June, the bank's green loan balance was 23.572 billion yuan, up 1.891 billion yuan from the beginning of the year. Meanwhile, the bank gradually strengthened digital finance, building a dual-driven pattern of digital scenario finance plus online channel operations. Digital scenario services such as Property Connect, Park Connect, and Finance-Tax Connect continued to expand, covering 12,000 B-end enterprises, up 37.92% year-on-year, and reaching 455,900 C-end customers, up 51.47% year-on-year, with initial results in batch customer acquisition.
Revenue and Net Profit Face Challenges After Years of Positive Growth
During Yu Jianzhong's tenure, Bank of Tianjin (HKEX: 01578) maintained consecutive positive growth in both revenue and net profit. From 2023 to 2025, the bank's operating revenue was 16.456 billion yuan, 16.709 billion yuan, and 16.955 billion yuan, respectively, representing year-on-year growth of 4.4%, 1.5%, and 1.5%. From 2023 to 2025, the bank's net profit attributable to shareholders was 3.76 billion yuan, 3.802 billion yuan, and 3.866 billion yuan, respectively, up 5.5%, 1.1%, and 1.7% year-on-year. In 2025, the net interest margin and net interest spread rebounded against the industry-wide downward trend, both increasing by 0.06 percentage points year-on-year. In terms of asset scale, from 2023 to 2025, the bank's total assets were 840.77 billion yuan, 925.99 billion yuan, and 982.4 billion yuan, respectively, just one step away from the one trillion yuan threshold.
Alongside growth, there are also hidden concerns. The bank's revenue has failed to return to its 2021 high of 17.7 billion yuan for consecutive years, and although net profit has grown, the growth rate has slowed. Entering the first half of 2026, the bank achieved operating revenue of 8.5 billion yuan in the first half, down 3.7% year-on-year, and net profit of 1.875 billion yuan, down 6.6% year-on-year, making it the only bank among 29 listed city commercial banks to report a dual decline in both revenue and net profit in its interim report. Total assets stood at 969.506 billion yuan, down 1.3% from the beginning of the year. From 2023 to 2025, Bank of Tianjin (HKEX: 01578) saw its total loans grow by double digits for three consecutive years, with growth rates of 17.4%, 11.3%, and 12%, respectively. However, in the first half of 2026, loan scale experienced negative growth for the first time, standing at 474.41 billion yuan, down 3.9% from 493.622 billion yuan at the beginning of the year. In terms of asset quality, in the first half of 2026, Bank of Tianjin (HKEX: 01578)'s overall NPL ratio rose to 1.77%, up 0.07 percentage points from the end of the previous year.
The revenue decline was mainly dragged down by non-interest income. During the period, net interest income was 6.362 billion yuan, up 7.4% year-on-year, and net interest margin was 1.49%, up 0.02 percentage points year-on-year, a relatively decent performance. However, net fee and commission income was 720 million yuan, down 8.8% year-on-year. Investment income was 1.16 billion yuan, down 8.6% year-on-year, and net trading gains shrank by 67.1%, dragging overall revenue into negative growth. In terms of profitability efficiency, the return on average total assets declined from 0.48% in 2022 to 0.41% in 2025, and the return on average equity fell from 6.03% to 5.59%, below the industry average.
Corporate Loans Account for Nearly 80%, While Retail and Manufacturing Face Pressure
Corporate business has become the absolute mainstay. At the end of 2025, Bank of Tianjin (HKEX: 01578)'s corporate loan balance reached 391.6 billion yuan, up 17.2% from the end of the previous year, with its share of total loans rising to 79.4%. By the first half of 2026, the corporate loan balance was 388.087 billion yuan, with its share remaining at 79.4%. While the corporate scale expanded rapidly, the corporate loan NPL ratio mainly trended downward. In 2025, the corporate loan NPL ratio dropped from 1.45% at the end of 2024 to 1.16%, though it slightly rose to 1.22% in the first half of 2026, mainly related to the expansion of manufacturing loans and declining asset quality. In the first half, the manufacturing NPL balance was 1.419 billion yuan, and the NPL ratio rose from 5.21% at the end of 2025 to 8.84% in the first half of 2026.
At the same time, the direction of regional deepening and strategic transformation is clear. Bank of Tianjin (HKEX: 01578) closely follows the coordinated development of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and the development and opening-up of the Binhai New Area. The corporate loan balance in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region was 257.433 billion yuan, loans to technology innovation enterprises increased by 38.19%, green loans grew by 15.18%, and shipping finance disbursements increased by 92.8% year-on-year. Yu Jianzhong explicitly proposed a transformation direction of competing on quality rather than scale, shifting from scale expansion to connotative development. However, personal loans declined from 110.59 billion yuan at the end of 2023 to 80.015 billion yuan at the end of 2025, and further dropped to 66.178 billion yuan in the first half of 2026, down 17.3% from the beginning of the year, mainly due to the continued reduction of internet co-lending.
Looking at the breakdown of personal loans, as of the end of June 2026, the personal consumption loan balance was 29.011 billion yuan, down 19.4% from the beginning of the year; the personal business loan balance was 20.46 billion yuan, down 20.6% from the beginning of the year; and the housing mortgage loan balance was 16.71 billion yuan, down 8.4% from the beginning of the year, with all three categories contracting across the board. The personal loan NPL ratio rose from 2.84% at the end of 2024 to 4.64% at the end of 2025, and further to 5.77% at the end of June 2026.
Bill discounting surged against the trend. In the first half of 2026, bill discounting amounted to 33.42 billion yuan, up 60.1% from the beginning of the year, becoming the only category within total loans to show significant expansion. Since 2026, Bank of Tianjin (HKEX: 01578) has shifted from prioritizing scale to prioritizing quality. However, with declining asset quality in manufacturing and personal loans, combined with a single revenue structure, how the new leader optimizes the income structure after taking office will be one of the core challenges he faces.