Five major articles make a splash; what enables Huaxia Bank to achieve both quantitative and qualitative growth?

Ask AI · How can Huaxia Bank achieve over 50% rapid growth in technology-driven finance?

Produced by|China Inforum Network

Reviewed by|Li Xiaoyan

On March 30, 2025, Huaxia Bank’s annual report was officially released. This comprehensive “annual report card” not only demonstrates the resilience of a state-owned financial institution maintaining steady progress in a complex economic environment but also, through its solid actions in serving national strategies and deeply supporting the real economy, sketches a vivid picture of how financial state-owned enterprises fulfill their original missions. Over the past year, Huaxia Bank took “the Ten Major Actions” as its focus for business enhancement, coordinating efforts across multiple dimensions—scale, structure, efficiency, and risk control—to promote stability and win through quality, laying a solid foundation for high-quality development during the “Fifteenth Five-Year Plan.”

In 2025, Huaxia Bank’s operational performance improved across all areas. Key indicators achieved both quantitative and qualitative growth, reaching the fastest pace in nearly five years. By the end of the year, total assets reached RMB 4.74 trillion, an increase of 8.3%; deposit balances were RMB 2.38 trillion, and loan balances RMB 2.57 trillion, rising by 10.7% and 8.5% respectively. Both the growth in deposits and loans and their respective increments hit new highs in the past five years, with financial strength and service capacity rising simultaneously.

Profitability remained stable: the full-year net profit attributable to the parent company was RMB 27.2 billion. Despite industry-wide narrowing of net interest margins, it demonstrated strong operational resilience. Asset quality continued to improve, with a non-performing loan ratio of 1.55%, down 0.05 percentage points from the previous year. It achieved steady decline for five consecutive years, with risk mitigation capacity continuously strengthening. The bank’s international brand influence kept rising: its tier-one capital ranked 47th among the world’s top 1,000 banks in The Banker’s global ranking, up 2 places from the previous year, marking a new leap in overall competitiveness.

Behind the scale growth is deep structural optimization. The proportions of deposits and loans increased by 1.1 and 0.1 percentage points respectively, clearly reflecting a shift of funds “from virtual assets to serving the real economy”; the share of business related to the “Five Major Articles” supporting national strategies increased by 6.1 percentage points, making development momentum more balanced and sustainable. Transitioning from “scale expansion” to “quality and efficiency improvement,” Huaxia Bank has strengthened its financial foundation to better serve the real economy with a stable and solid base.

Upholding the original mission of finance for the people, Huaxia Bank is guided by two distinctive features: “technology finance” and “green finance.” It deepens its efforts in inclusive finance, pension finance, and digital finance, precisely channeling financial resources into key areas and weak links of the real economy. The highlights and achievements of the “Five Major Articles” are numerous and significant.

Technology finance leads innovation and empowers new productive forces. Focusing on the innovation-driven development strategy, Huaxia Bank has built a full-cycle service system for “investment–lending linkage,” launching products such as innovative R&D loans, investment-linked loans, and option loans to address the pain points of tech enterprises—“light assets” and “difficult financing.” In 2025, it implemented the first batch of interbank science and technology innovation bond investments. The balance of technology finance loans reached RMB 244.6 billion, with a growth rate of 53.7%, accelerating the transformation of scientific and technological achievements and speeding up industrial upgrades through financial support.

Green finance enhances the brand and supports the construction of a beautiful China. It has established a full-chain green service system covering “lending, investment, underwriting, leasing, and asset management,” and collaborates with the Asian Development Bank to promote green and low-carbon projects in industrial parks. The influence of the “Green Builds a Beautiful Huaxia” brand continues to expand. The green loan balance for the year was RMB 373.4 billion, an increase of 31%; it successfully issued RMB 20 billion in green financial bonds, injecting long-term funds into sectors such as clean energy and low-carbon manufacturing, safeguarding ecological and environmental health with financial strength.

Inclusive finance benefits millions of households and helps micro and small enterprises thrive. It focuses on urgent, difficult, and pressing needs of small and micro enterprises, iterating and upgrading digital inclusive finance products like “Longshang Loans,” enabling full online processing for efficiency and convenience; it reduced or exempted 20 types of fees, effectively lowering financing costs. The balance of inclusive small and micro loans reached RMB 193.6 billion, up 6%, exceeding regulatory targets for eight consecutive years, illuminating the growth path of small businesses with the sunshine of finance.

Pension finance accelerates deployment to safeguard the happiness of the elderly. It constructs a “three-in-one” framework of “pension funds, services, and industries,” covering four major categories—savings, funds, wealth management, and insurance—to comprehensively meet pension needs. Personal pension accounts reached 776,000, an increase of 30.8%; pension industry financing amounted to RMB 58.6 billion, up 32.8%, using financial warmth to support the high-quality development of the “silver economy.”

Digital finance empowers development deeply, activating new growth drivers. It promotes the deep integration of finance and technology, expanding scenarios such as smart education and digital government services, creating integrated services like “smart campuses” and “digital cafeterias.” Loans to core industries of the digital economy totaled RMB 97.1 billion, an increase of 29.9%; mobile banking contracted customers reached 31.31 million, with 6.26 million monthly active users. Its digital service reach continues to strengthen, injecting financial intelligence into industrial digitalization.

Actively integrating into the national development strategy, Huaxia Bank focuses on key regions and key sectors, optimizing resource allocation and strengthening financial supply to achieve high-quality development while serving national strategies.

Focusing on key sectors, enhancing precise credit deployment. Supporting new productive forces, manufacturing, and strategic emerging industries, it increases support. Manufacturing loans totaled RMB 304.0 billion, up 18.7%, providing solid support for industrial upgrading, advanced industrial foundations, and modernization of industrial chains.

Deepening regional cooperation and integrating into four major economic circles. Targeting Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei, the Yangtze River Delta, Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area, and Chengdu–Chongqing, it uses “leading branch” banks to guide resource tilting. Growth rates of regional deposits and loans both exceeded 10%. It improves cross-border financial services: cross-border RMB receipts and payments reached RMB 151.1 billion, up 22.7%, facilitating smooth and efficient domestic and international dual circulation.

Enhancing retail finance to serve better lives. It builds an end-to-end customer service system. Personal active customers reached 1.691 million, up 30.8%; private banking customers numbered 20,200, with RMB 111 billion in financial assets, increasing by 21.7% and 11.3%. From wealth management to consumer credit, refined services meet the growing financial needs of the people.

Accelerating comprehensive operations and improving efficiency through subsidiary collaboration. Huaxia Financial Leasing’s total assets exceeded RMB 200 billion, with net profit over RMB 3 billion. Its green leasing accounted for 53.4%, and its ROE ranked first among peers; Huaxia Wealth Management’s scale reached RMB 1.2 trillion, up 45.8%. For three consecutive years, its growth rate led the industry, earning the title of “Golden Ox Wealth Management Company.” Its diversified operation advantages continue to be demonstrated.

Balancing development and security, Huaxia Bank improves a comprehensive risk management system, using intelligent and data-driven prevention and control measures to build a solid line of defense for high-quality development.

Enhancing risk governance and reinforcing responsibility. It strengthens the risk appetite framework, implements risk dispatching for key lines, enhances centralized credit approval, and constructs a clear, collaborative, and efficient risk governance structure. It also improves accountability mechanisms, embedding compliance concepts throughout the entire business process to prevent systemic risks.

Upgrading intelligent risk control to improve prevention and mitigation. It iterates the “Longdun” big data risk control system, optimizes risk measurement models, and employs AI and big data for precise risk identification and smart early warnings. Transaction risk responses and handling are performed within seconds, leveraging technology to improve risk control quality and efficiency. In 2025, it successfully protected customer funds exceeding RMB 1.2 billion.

Strengthening compliance management to build a solid foundation for stable operations. As the first bank to systematically establish a compliance officer team covering headquarters, branches, and subsidiaries, it advances digital compliance transformation, controlling risks such as cases, money laundering, operational, and legal risks across the entire chain, ensuring compliance supports steady and sound development.

With a journey of thousands of miles and strong winds, we set out again with heavy responsibilities. 2026 marks the beginning of the “Fifteenth Five-Year Plan” and a crucial year for Huaxia Bank’s high-quality development. Standing at a new starting point, Huaxia Bank will always uphold the political and people-centered nature of financial work, pursue steady progress, and promote business to return to its fundamentals, management to its essence, and positioning to its true nature—serving the real economy with more practical measures, fulfilling the responsibilities of a state-owned enterprise with higher quality, and responding to risks with greater resilience. With concerted efforts, Huaxia Bank will write a new chapter of high-quality development, contributing solid Huaxia strength to the comprehensive building of a modern socialist country!