Cao Deyun stated that specialization in the financial sector, through optimizing resource allocation, diversifying risks, improving efficiency, and enhancing services, has shaped the framework of the modern financial system.
On January 28, 2026, the "Golden Pi Xiu · 16th China Financial Innovation and Development Forum," organized by Financial Planning magazine and E-Quality Financial Media, was successfully held in Beijing. The forum, themed "Competition and Cooperation Enable Empowerment, Navigating Trends to Break Through Challenges," explored high-quality development pathways for the 180 trillion yuan asset management market during its period of ecosystem restructuring.
During his address, Cao Deyun, former Executive Vice President of the China Insurance Asset Management Association, systematically reviewed and projected the progression of specialization reforms within China's financial sector. Cao emphasized that specialization reform has been a crucial starting point and core component of China's financial reforms, a process aligned with the nation's conditions, market principles, and the inherent logic of financial development. Reflecting on historical practices, he asserted that building specialization has established the structure of the modern financial system by enhancing resource allocation, risk dispersion, efficiency, and service quality. Looking ahead, the asset management industry and the broader financial field must persist in and deepen the specialization path, expanding its depth, breadth, and quality to enter a new phase marked by refinement, precision, and excellence.
Specialization forms the backbone of the modern financial system, with the expanded and upgraded large asset management sector creating a diverse landscape.
At the onset of reform and opening-up, China's financial system faced the significant task of transitioning from planned allocation to market-based distribution. Breaking away from the old unified model and establishing a modern financial organization and market system with clear divisions of labor and complementary functions became an urgent reform necessity. Specialized division of labor commenced against this backdrop, initiating the transformation and restructuring of China's financial system.
Cao Deyun recalled that a landmark starting point for specialization reform was in 1983, when the People's Bank of China began exclusively exercising central bank functions. Subsequently, specialized banks such as the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, and China Construction Bank were established or resumed operations, followed by the emergence of various banking institutions including joint-stock banks, policy banks, city commercial banks, and rural commercial banks. Cao analyzed that this process extended far beyond differentiation within the banking sector. Financial sub-sectors such as insurance, trust, securities, funds, and futures successively separated from their parent bodies to become independent industries, leading to increasingly detailed specialization within the financial system. Concurrently, markets with specialized functions, including bonds, stocks, foreign exchange, futures, and money markets, gradually formed and expanded.
This specialization reform dismantled the traditional segmented model, constructing a new financial framework based on social division of labor, comparative advantages, and business characteristics. This was not merely an increase in institutions and markets but a significant outcome of financial deepening. Practice has demonstrated that this specialization path meets the practical needs of China's financial development, aligns with the requirements of market economy construction, and adheres to the development laws of the financial industry itself.
As global trends in asset management specialization become prominent, China's large asset management industry has benefited from deepening financial reforms and rising household wealth management demands, experiencing sustained rapid growth and gradually forming a specialized development pattern characterized by diversity, coordination, and detailed division of labor.
Cao Deyun indicated that specialization in asset management is a mainstream trend domestically and internationally, focusing on systematization, standardization, and scientific approaches. By enhancing investment decision-making and risk management capabilities through systematic methods, the ultimate goal is to generate better returns for investors. China's large asset management industry has developed rapidly in recent years, reaching 157 trillion yuan by the end of 2024, increasing to 170 trillion yuan in the first half of 2025, and approaching 180 trillion yuan by the end of the third quarter. It is projected that the scale may approach 200 trillion yuan in 2025, with future growth expected at 8% to 10% annually.
Cao analyzed that China's large asset management industry has formed a diverse structure encompassing sub-sectors such as bank wealth management, insurance asset management, public funds, trusts, securities asset management, private funds, and futures asset management. Each segment leverages its specialized division of labor, exhibiting distinct development characteristics in scale, speed, and structure, while playing unique roles in supporting the real economy, improving financial markets, and serving public livelihood construction.
Advancing forward to build a new development ecosystem characterized by refinement, precision, and excellence.
Now that specialization has established the current basic framework, quantitative accumulation inevitably calls for a qualitative leap. Amid the waves of technological revolution, continuously evolving market demands, and deepening financial openness, the connotation of specialization needs further expansion, and its development must progress towards deeper, broader, and more integrated levels.
Cao Deyun shared multiple insights on deepening specialization in asset management. He analyzed that building specialization aligns with the inevitable trend of refined social division of labor. Particularly with the support of technologies like artificial intelligence, new business forms and institutions will continue to emerge. Specialization does not imply isolation or fragmentation; its essence lies in enhancing efficiency through deepened division of labor, which should facilitate inter-industry exchange and collaborative cooperation.
Reflecting on historical experience, Cao pointed out that the emergence of various specialized institutions in financial markets results from diversified market demands, not the root cause of financial irregularities. Malpractices often stem from institutional gaps, management failures, and the prevalence of pseudo-innovation, which恰恰 reflect insufficient specialization and operational capabilities. Cao emphasized that specialization development requires synergistic support from marketization, legalization, internationalization, digitalization, and innovation, all of which are indispensable. The core principle is the comprehensive implementation of "professional institutions handling professional matters, and professionals doing professional work," covering all aspects from organizational forms to talent, culture, and technology.
Cao further elaborated that deep specialization embodies the concentration of professional spirit, including practitioners' knowledge, skills, professional ethics, and a sense of mission striving for excellence. The ultimate goal is to provide investors with a positive experience and a sense of gain. Cao believes that deepening and expanding specialization requires guidance from regulatory policies, market inclusiveness, institutional innovation and collaboration, and effective empowerment by technology.
The specialization development of China's financial and asset management industries has passed the initial stage and will enter a new phase of expansion and deepening marked by refinement, precision, and excellence. Empowered by artificial intelligence and digital transformation, the large asset management industry is expected to rely on a more robust and systematic specialized management system, advancing towards new heights of high-quality development.