Digital Intelligence Empowers Core Strength, Ping An Bank Delivers Steady Quality Improvement Annual Report

Currently, the domestic banking industry is in a critical period of continuous narrowing of interest spreads, accelerated industry transformation, and reshaping of competitive patterns. Like navigating a transformation route amid turbulent waves, how to maintain operational bottom lines under pressure and achieve quality improvement and efficiency gains has become an important challenge for major commercial banks.

Ping An Bank (000001) (000001.SZ), which has distinctive operational features in retail banking and comprehensive financial services, has withstood market tests with strategic resolve, continuously deepening its focus on the “five major articles” of finance, and delivering a high-quality annual report that combines resilient performance with innovative vitality.

On the evening of March 20, Ping An Bank released its 2025 annual report, showing that the bank’s total assets at year-end reached 5.93 trillion yuan, a 2.7% increase year-over-year, with steady expansion; annual operating income was 131.442 billion yuan, and net profit was 42.633 billion yuan. Despite some fluctuations due to industry-wide factors, the bank’s profitability resilience has become increasingly evident during industry adjustments.

As strategic reforms continue to deepen, many of Ping An Bank’s operational indicators show positive trends, laying a solid foundation for sustained and healthy future development.

It is worth noting that Ping An Bank actively rewards investors. In 2025, it plans to distribute a cash dividend of 5.96 yuan (including tax) per 10 shares, totaling 11.566 billion yuan, accounting for 28.83% of the net profit attributable to ordinary shareholders in the consolidated financial statements, and 27.13% of the net profit attributable to the bank’s shareholders.

Steady Improvement in Operating Quality and Efficiency

In 2025, key indicators of banking operations sent positive signals. Overall profitability improved, asset quality remained stable, and the pace of asset expansion accelerated. The overall operating environment shifted from pressure to recovery.

Regarding asset quality, commercial banks maintained a non-performing loan (NPL) ratio of 1.5%, consistent with the end of the previous year. Joint-stock banks’ NPL ratio decreased to a low of 1.21%, with overall risk controllable; industry-wide loan loss reserve coverage remained above 205%, indicating sufficient risk resistance.

Against this backdrop, Ping An Bank adhered to the strategic principles of “strengthening retail, refining corporate banking, and specializing in interbank business,” continuously promoting cost reduction and efficiency, improving productivity, and strengthening risk management, resulting in more stable overall business operations.

From the 2025 annual report, Ping An Bank proactively optimized its asset structure, channeling financial resources to support the real economy. It focused on key industries, regions, and clients, selecting sectors with stable growth, low cyclicality, and good asset quality, while reducing high-risk clients to further optimize asset allocation and anchor high-quality development.

By the end of 2025, the bank’s total loans and advances amounted to 3.39 trillion yuan, a 0.5% increase year-over-year; corporate loan balances grew by 3.5%, with good growth in fields like technology and green finance, and credit resources tilted toward strategic emerging industries, injecting financial momentum into the real economy.

Meanwhile, the bank maintained stable deposit levels and significantly optimized interest rates. As of the end of 2025, total liabilities were 5.38 trillion yuan, up 1.9%; deposit balances reached 3.58 trillion yuan, up 1.4%. Data shows that Ping An Bank strengthened the absorption of low-cost deposits and agilely adjusted the pace of deposit and interbank liability growth, significantly reducing overall funding costs, with notable results in “quality improvement and cost reduction” on the liability side.

In the context of economic transformation and ongoing credit risks, asset quality remains the lifeline of prudent bank operation. Ping An Bank consistently adheres to the principles of “prudence, risk controllability,” strengthening comprehensive risk management, increasing efforts in bad asset recovery and disposal, and building a solid risk bottom line, delivering impressive results in industry risk prevention and control.

As of the end of 2025, the bank’s NPL ratio was 1.05%, down 0.01 percentage points year-over-year; loan loss reserve coverage was 220.88%, maintaining strong risk mitigation capacity.

Guotai Junan Securities (601788) research report noted that Ping An Bank has advanced its retail transformation in recent years, “actively adjusting and seeking progress amid stability,” and that the phased pain of transformation is an inevitable process. Against this background, the asset scale remained stable, and the NPL ratio stayed at a low level of 1.05%, which is no small achievement.

Deepening Retail Transformation

Domestic retail banking is entering a critical phase of profound transformation and structural adjustment, with many banks exploring refined and digital development paths. Ping An Bank is also entering its year of deepening retail strategic transformation.

Faced with external challenges such as slowing recovery of consumer demand and widespread pressure on retail business, Ping An Bank decisively adjusted its operational strategies, establishing a core focus on “efficiency first, balanced with scale,” actively optimizing business structure, reducing high-risk assets, and cultivating high-quality customer segments. It continuously improves service quality and value contribution, successfully reversing performance declines.

Core data shows that Ping An Bank’s retail customer base continues to strengthen, with customer assets growing steadily, and customer quality improving alongside asset size. By the end of 2025, retail customers numbered 128 million, a 1.9% increase; retail customer assets (AUM) exceeded 4.2 trillion yuan, reaching 4.24 trillion yuan, up 1.1%.

In loan business, the bank responded to external environment changes by continuously optimizing loan structures, actively reducing high-risk credit loans, and increasing mortgage loans to solidify asset quality. As of the end of 2025, personal loan balances were 1.7273 trillion yuan, down 2.3% year-over-year, with mortgage loans accounting for 62.9% of personal loans, making the asset structure more stable.

Additionally, the bank’s penetration into consumer scenarios and customer activity levels continued to rise. By the end of 2025, credit card circulation accounts reached 43.69 million, with total annual spending exceeding 2 trillion yuan; auto finance loans totaled 304.8 billion yuan, up 3.7%, with new personal auto loans issued totaling 72.6 billion yuan, up 13.9%.

In wealth management, as of the end of 2025, personal deposits reached 1.29 trillion yuan, with AUM from payroll and bulk business clients at 1.17 trillion yuan, up 19.3%; customer deposit balances reached 393.87 billion yuan, up 10.8%. Wealth clients numbered 1.4915 million, a 2.4% increase, including private banking clients at 105,600, up 9.1%; private banking AUM approached 2 trillion yuan, up 0.8%. The high-net-worth client segment has shown significant growth, and wealth management’s contribution continues to rise.

Furthermore, Ping An Bank leverages its resource advantages to continuously iterate digital and comprehensive financial platforms, expanding customer marketing channels and service scope, providing multi-scenario, multi-ecosystem integrated service models, and continuously optimizing customer experience.

By the end of 2025, the Ping An Pocket Bank APP had 182 million registered users, a 4.7% increase, with monthly active users (MAU) reaching approximately 39.95 million. In 2025, new wealth clients contributed 50.2% of total, new customer AUM accounted for 49.1%, and new credit card accounts made up 12.3%. The collaborative effects of the integrated financial ecosystem continue to be released.

Empowering Digital Finance

Digital transformation is a key engine for commercial banks to enhance core competitiveness and achieve high-quality development. In 2025, relying on Ping An Group’s strong technological strength and comprehensive financial ecosystem, Ping An Bank unwaveringly advanced its digital financial strategy, leveraging technology to drive business innovation, service upgrades, and management optimization. It has built a comprehensive digital operation, risk control, and management system, using intelligent power to promote high-quality development.

In 2025, the bank’s IT capital expenditure and related costs totaled 4.806 billion yuan, continuously promoting resource integration and optimization, improving R&D and management efficiency, and providing strong support for high-quality growth.

Specifically, Ping An Bank strengthened its technological support in three main areas:

1. Upgraded key systems, successfully launching the new generation of distributed core systems, achieving full-stack domestication, supporting future business needs of “billions of accounts and billions of daily transactions”; upgraded infrastructure for financial market valuation and risk measurement systems, increasing complex calculation speeds by 4-6 times.

2. Improved model development, operation, and application platforms, accelerating AI deployment. By 2025, the AI application development cycle was shortened by over 60%, with more than 390 large model application scenarios implemented.

3. Built an intelligent R&D efficiency system, deepening AI technology integration with R&D and testing processes. By the end of 2025, AI code generation accounted for over 30%.

Beyond laying a solid digital foundation, Ping An Bank also promotes digital and intelligent business development across retail, corporate, and interbank sectors.

For example, in retail, the bank launched version 8.0 of the Ping An Pocket Bank APP, integrating high-frequency scenarios; upgraded the “AI+T+Offline” service model, strengthening AI assistants and intelligent voice call tools; in corporate banking, it uses large AI models for smart opportunity discovery, marketing plan generation, and product strategy matching; in risk control, it established an AI risk platform, consolidating intelligent agents into risk management workflows to improve credit processing and risk decision-making efficiency.

Through digital management, operational processes are optimized, redundancies reduced, and operating costs continuously lowered. In 2025, the bank achieved efficient resource allocation across personnel, material, and financial resources, with total operating and management expenses down 5.9% year-over-year. Cost reduction and efficiency gains have become a key support for steady performance growth.

As the “14th Five-Year Plan” begins, Ping An Bank states it will continue to enhance its service capacity to the real economy, strengthen financial risk prevention, improve operational management, maintain stable operations, and strive to create greater value for the country, society, shareholders, customers, and employees.

(Edited by: Li Zhanfeng HF001)

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