Investigation | Cancel, cancel, cancel! How far have brokerage firm branches been withdrawn?

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（Source: Securities Research Society）

In 2025, major A-share indexes continued to break upward through multiple key thresholds one after another, ushering in an index-level rally that had not been seen for a decade. But the number of securities business outlets did not expand alongside the market; instead, amid a backdrop of daily average trading value exceeding 1.5 trillion yuan, they have continued to “shrink.”

Recently, reporters from Securities Times (China Securities Journal) combined statistics from multidimensional data and interviews with people from multiple brokerages. They sorted out the changes in broker network layout over the past decade, compared the differentiated layouts between mid-sized and small brokerages and leading brokerages, outlined the transformation trajectory of the securities industry shifting from “racing for land and customers” to “improving quality and efficiency,” and restored the true picture of how financial resources were reallocated behind the scenes.

Business outlet numbers have fallen to the level from 7 years ago

According to data from the Shanghai Stock Exchange compiled by Securities Times (China Securities Journal) reporters, as of the end of 2025, the total number of securities business outlets operated by brokerages across 31 trading regions in mainland China was 11,300, having fallen back to the level of 2018. Looking back over the past decade, in 2015, the industry’s number of outlets was 8,170. After that, brokerages accelerated their “race for land and customers,” with the number of outlets reaching a peak of 11,800 in 2021. Over six years, the increase was 40%.

Industry insiders believe that the shift from growth to decline in the number of outlets is driven not only by industry competition and the requirements of transformation, but also by impacts brought by technological development. A person from Guohai Securities explained that the high-commission era of 2015 could support brokerages’ rapid expansion of outlets. But in recent years, industry commissions have fallen to between 1.5‱—2.5‱, and rigid costs such as offline outlet rents and headcount have remained high. In addition, business homogeneity is serious; resources are over-consumed in the scramble for new customers, leaving individual outlets stuck in a dilemma of “expanding scale without increasing profits.”

The digital wave is another key variable. A person from Zhongtai Securities believes that the most core factor is the impact of digitization: “More than 90% of basic businesses can be completed through apps. Online has become an important customer-acquisition channel, and the internet brokerage model breaks the traditional logic that the more outlets there are, the stronger the competitiveness.” In addition, the transformation of wealth management is also forcing outlets to re-position themselves.

Against this backdrop, brokerages generally adopt two approaches to撤并 (merge and withdraw) outlets. A person from Galaxy Securities told Securities Times (China Securities Journal) reporters that first, outlets in the industry with small market capacity, fierce competition, limited development potential, overlapping service radius, difficulty in team building, and insufficient company brand influence are merged or withdrawn. Second, outlets with poor operating performance and insufficient development prospects are merged or withdrawn, and overall operating efficiency and quality are improved through regional integration and intensive management.

A person from CICC Wealth supplemented that currently brokerages are focusing even more on key regions and core cities. Relying on branch institutions, they build comprehensive financial service platforms that cover the full business chain and are more diversified. “In the industry, there is a stronger tendency to set up subsidiaries; the number of newly established subsidiaries exceeds the number of those being removed. Traditional business outlets, meanwhile, show a shrinking trend, with the number of new outlets lower than the number being撤销.”

Has this round of withdrawals already entered the “second half”? A person from 广发证券 believes that industry outlet adjustments have entered a stage of structural optimization. In the future, there will be characteristics of “total volume stabilizing while the structure diverges”—core cities will maintain a certain density, while non-core regions will maintain service coverage through lightweight and intelligent approaches. It is expected that the industry’s total number of outlets will gradually reach a stable level that matches market demand.

“Withdrawals” are more common in cities below third-tier

Although the overall number of business outlets in the industry is declining, this “shrinking wave” also shows clear differentiation among different provinces and different tiers of cities.

According to Shanghai Stock Exchange data, the combined number of outlets in five trading regions—Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu—has also decreased in sync, but their combined share has grown nearly every year. By the end of 2025, it had approached 45%, higher than 42.23% in 2015, making the trend of financial resources concentrating in developed regions increasingly evident.

By contrast, as many as 12 regions have already seen their outlet numbers return to around the level of 2017. This includes populous provinces such as Sichuan and Henan. Another 6 regions have returned to the level of 2015–2016, including the three northeastern provinces, Gansu, Qinghai, and Guangxi. For example, in Guangxi, by the end of 2025, there were 161 outlets across the whole region, close to the end of 2015 level (158). During the peak in 2018, this figure had reached 211.

When analyzing the Guangxi market, a person from Guohai Securities said that in recent years, brokerages have reduced costs through lightweight operations and optimized outlet layouts. In-city redundancy, low efficiency, and loss-making outlets have become the key targets for withdrawal, with outlets in non-core cities in Guangxi bearing the brunt first. The person noted that regional market characteristics are also accelerating the structural contraction of outlets. In Guangxi, listed companies and wealth and high-net-worth client resources are concentrated in a small number of cities that rank high in economic standings. For outlets that go deeper downward—especially those with relatively short establishment times—there may be insufficient customer bases and low productivity. In the short term, it is unlikely to turn losses into profits; they are more likely to be optimized out and cleared by certain brokerage headquarters.

By the end of 2025, in most prefecture-level cities in Guangxi, outlet counts had fallen to varying degrees, and the number of outlets in county-level areas had declined noticeably. The Guohai Securities source said that among 51 securities companies with branches within Guangxi, only 2 retain county-level outlets. Guangxi’s county-level securities branch institutions have been reduced to just 20, down nearly 40% from 2019. Of those, 19 are outlets of Guohai Securities.

Securities Times (China Securities Journal) reporters noted that it is not only Guangxi—multiple provinces’ cities at the third tier and below are also facing “outlet withdrawals” by brokerages. For instance, in Henan, based on data from the Henan Financial Regulatory Bureau compiled by Securities Times (China Securities Journal) reporters, Xinyang reduced four branch institutions to 11 over the past five years (2020–2025). Shangqiu and Zhumadian respectively reduced three branches to 10 and two branches to 6 over the same period.

Hunan is somewhat different. Over the past four years, Zhuzhou decreased by 7 to 25 outlets, Shaoyang decreased by 6 to 16, and Yueyang, Chenzhou, and Yongzhou each decreased by 5, leaving 23, 19, and 11 respectively. These cities have relatively large starting bases for outlets, fierce competition, and service radii that may overlap to some extent.

By comparison, only two provinces have seen outlet numbers grow against the trend, reaching new highs in 2025. Among them, Shaanxi had 303 securities business outlets at the end of 2025. Xi’an started building a “15-minute financial services circle” in December 2024, attracting financial institutions including banks and brokerages to add outlets. Hainan had 87 outlets at the end of 2025. Last year, Hainan’s free trade port initiated full-island closed-loop operations; some brokerages seized this opportunity to establish new branches.

Brokerage strategies each make trade-offs

In regional markets outside the more developed areas, brokerages’ moves in or out are not uniform. Different brokerages, with different sizes and locations, each have their own strategic considerations.

The Guohai Securities source mentioned earlier observed that leading brokerages and mid-sized and small brokerages have clear differences in their deployment strategy in Guangxi. Over the past decade, more than 10 mid-sized and small brokerages had 1–2 outlets in Guangxi, but after 2019 they gradually withdrew and exited the Guangxi market. In contrast, some large brokerages have continued to actively seize opportunities in the Guangxi market.

This pattern is also visible in other provinces. Based on Securities Times (China Securities Journal) reporters’ sorting, for example, Ai Jian Securities had withdrawn from setting up outlets in populous provinces such as Henan, Sichuan, and Hunan over the past five years. Meanwhile, Zhongtian Guofu Securities fully withdrew from Sichuan in the same period. In Liaoning, Huaxin Securities, Century Securities, and Minmetals Securities also gave up setting up outlets in that province over the past eight years.

During the wave of outlet withdrawals in third-tier cities and below described above, the actions of mid-sized and small brokerages are particularly prominent. For example, in Zhuzhou, Hunan, CICC Investment Securities, Huayuan Securities, Lianxin Securities, Great Wall Securities, and others all withdrew in sequence. In Mianyang, Sichuan, Hongta Securities, Jinyuan Securities, Hualin Securities, China Post Securities, Yuekai Securities, and others also withdrew one after another.

Although some mid-sized and small brokerages are accelerating their exit from out-of-town markets, the contraction in nationwide outlets for large brokerages is relatively limited. For example, in observation samples in Sichuan and Hunan, the number of large brokerages’ branches has basically remained stable. In Henan and Liaoning, the number of large brokerages’ outlets has only decreased slightly.

When deciding “where to set up, where to withdraw, and where to stay,” a person from Zhongtai Securities said the company continues to make steady new additions in developed cities outside Shandong Province, while it adopts a contraction approach for branches in less developed regions and inland cities to improve its layout. For cities where multiple branches exist in the same city, it takes a consolidation approach to optimize the layout for those with smaller economic scale and poorer performance.

A person from Galaxy Securities said the securities industry’s branch institutions have moved beyond the “spray-and-pray” layout logic that treats administrative zoning as a single anchor. The industry has now shifted toward three main directions:

First, deepen coverage in core regions, focusing on key customers to provide tailored services. Main layouts include the Yangtze River Delta and the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area, building brand image and serving as a core carrier for high-value businesses, with distinctive features such as more high-end outlet venues, specialized front-desk teams, and tailored customer services.

Second, strengthen central cities. Add or upgrade outlets in Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, and others. At the same time, break restrictions of administrative regions and promote the expansion of service radius to surrounding areas.

Third, go deeper into industrial parks. Set up outlets in key industrial areas, commercial and trade zones, science and technology parks, and so on, to capture the policy dividends of coordinated regional development.

CICC Wealth’s approach is also to focus on cities where customers and talent are concentrated: allocate resources to key cities, and encourage top-performing branches to grow stronger. For cities with weaker potential for wealth management businesses, it will proceed cautiously with structural adjustments based on the principle of necessity. It is understood that CICC Wealth applies a three-tier classification management to business premises. In cities with multiple outlets within the same city, it uses a “flagship + satellite” model, coordinating coverage for the city center and CBD areas, city sub-centers, and other key areas. For single-point cities, it comprehensively considers factors such as regional economic development level and business team placement, and builds business outlets tailored to local conditions with appropriate functional fit.

Recently, Open-Source Securities has newly established outlets against the trend. A related source told Securities Times (China Securities Journal) reporters that the company aims to build a “10-minute service circle,” prioritizing high-potential areas. It references areas such as middle-to-high-end residential communities, large technology parks, emerging thriving commercial districts, and regions where financial business formats are mature. It also comprehensively considers factors including community occupancy rates, industry ecosystem, and property partners’ willingness to cooperate.

Local brokerages stick to the inclusive finance exam question

As brokerages gradually concentrate resources in regions with strong wealth management demand and more developed economies, how should inclusive finance needs in other regions be met?

Securities Times (China Securities Journal) reporters noticed that regional local brokerages, leveraging their long-term deep-rooted outlet foundation, play an important role in practicing inclusive finance in some economically weaker areas. This is a functional coverage that large and mid-sized brokerages set up from outside often cannot match.

For example, in Sichuan, the branch institution counts over nearly five years have basically remained stable for three brokerages: West China Securities, Guojin Securities, and Tiansfu Securities (formerly Hongxin Securities)—at 63, 23, and 18 respectively. In Henan, among branch institutions in county-level cities in 2025, Zhongyuan Securities accounts for more than 80%, showing the local brokerages’ “role of guarding their territory.”

As the industry’s number of business outlets decreases noticeably, for local brokerages that have spent years cultivating the local area, both opportunities and challenges coexist, and both strengths and weaknesses are present.

A brokerage source interviewed said that in recent years, multiple provinces have promoted new-type urbanization and clarified the implementation of a new round of actions to transform agricultural transfer population into urban residents. In this context, the roughly 300 million agricultural residents-to-urban-residents group of local scale, along with a broader segment of the more affluent mass market, is a huge “blue ocean.” Wealth management services should accordingly extend to “long-tail” customer groups such as newly urbanized residents and young students.

A Guohai Securities source said that the reduction in the number of brokerage outlets in the Guangxi region will further highlight Guohai’s advantage in providing offline service coverage in the Guangxi market. This is beneficial for the company to fully tap regional business resources and rebuild the value of business outlets. It is understood that the company will embed investor education services into the county-level financial ecosystem to carry out “financial services going to the countryside,” while also focusing resources on supporting the key arteries of regional economic development, such as the sugar industry, aluminum industry, and ferrosilicon manganese industry, using futures-based approaches to achieve risk management.

Of course, challenges should not be ignored either. The Guohai Securities source said that in recent years, some leading brokerages have continued to strengthen their outlet layout and resource investment in the Guangxi region, and many adopt “price wars” to seize customers. Competition in the regional market is intense. In addition, compared with leading brokerages, mid-sized and small brokerages still have certain gaps in financial technology, wealth management, and integrated financial service capabilities. Moreover, the Guangxi region has relatively insufficient reserves of high-end financial talent. Against the backdrop of leading brokerages accelerating their deployment, the supply of talent and structural shortcomings have some impact on the company’s service capability upgrade and on the scaled expansion of business.