The six major banks' personal consumer loans grew by over 20% year-on-year, but asset quality still faces challenges.

In 2025, bank annual reports were released one after another, and changes in the personal loan business of China’s six state-owned major banks have come into view. By the end of 2025, the outstanding balance of personal housing loans at these six state-owned banks was about 24.48 trillion yuan, down 711.5 billion yuan from the previous year, or a year-over-year decline of 2.82%; however, consumer loans and business/operating loans performed remarkably well, becoming a new growth engine for personal loan business.

Data from the annual reports show that the outstanding balance of personal consumption loans at these six state-owned banks was about 3.34 trillion yuan, up 0.57 trillion yuan from the previous year, a year-over-year increase of 20.56%. The outstanding balance of personal business/operating loans was 9.36 trillion yuan, up 1.26 trillion yuan from the previous year, a year-over-year increase of 15.63%. Except for Postal Savings Bank, whose growth was relatively steady, the other five banks all achieved double-digit growth in the consumer loan segment. Also, except for Postal Savings Bank and Bank of China, the other four major banks likewise achieved double-digit growth in the business/operating loan segment. Among them, both Construction Bank’s consumer loans and business/operating loans had growth rates close to 30%.

This is also broadly consistent with changes in the People’s Bank of China’s (PBOC) disclosed statistics on lending flows of financial institutions. As of the end of Q4 2025, the outstanding balance of RMB real-estate loans was 51.95 trillion yuan, down 1.6% year over year, and decreased by 963.6 billion yuan for the full year. The outstanding balance of operating loans was 25.11 trillion yuan, up 4.0% year over year, and increased by 937.8 billion yuan for the full year. The outstanding balance of consumption-type loans, excluding personal housing loans, was 21.16 trillion yuan, up 0.7% year over year, and increased by 180.2 billion yuan for the full year.

What is noteworthy is that the year-over-year growth rates of consumer loans and operating/business loans at these six state-owned banks were significantly higher than the average growth rates of financial institutions disclosed by the PBOC. In other words, the “heat” in consumer loans and operating/business loans does not fully reflect the industry’s overall picture. Among the 22 listed banks whose annual reports have been disclosed, there are also multiple smaller banks whose consumer loans and operating/business loans saw year-over-year negative growth, reflecting the reality that the differentiation in retail credit structure across the banking industry is intensifying.

Mortgage loans decline, consumer and business/operating loans take up the slack

By bank, as of the end of 2025, Construction Bank’s personal housing loan balance stood at 5.99 trillion yuan, the largest among the six. Next were Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (5.88 trillion yuan), Agricultural Bank of China (4.82 trillion yuan), Bank of China (3.98 trillion yuan), Postal Savings Bank (2.37 trillion yuan), and Bank of Communications (1.44 trillion yuan).

In terms of changes in scale, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China had the largest year-over-year contraction in mortgage loans, at 3.41%. Agricultural Bank, Construction Bank, Bank of China, and Bank of Communications saw declines in sequence of 3.38%, 3.18%, 2.60%, and 1.65%, respectively, while Postal Savings Bank was roughly flat compared with last year.

For personal consumer loans, all six state-owned major banks achieved positive growth. Construction Bank had the highest year-over-year growth rate, at 29.41%. Bank of China and Agricultural Bank followed closely, with growth rates of 28.35% and 26.95%, respectively. Bank of Communications and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China grew at 19.82% and 18.48%, respectively. Postal Savings Bank of China had a relatively steady growth rate of 4.70%.

In terms of consumer loan scale, Construction Bank ranked first, with personal consumer loan outstanding balance of 244.8k yuan. Next were Postal Savings Bank and Agricultural Bank, with 33.4k yuan and 5.7k yuan, respectively. Bank of China and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China followed, at 93.6k yuan and 12.6k yuan, respectively. Bank of Communications had a relatively lower balance of 519.5k yuan.

It can be seen that Construction Bank’s year-over-year growth rate and outstanding balance for consumer loans both ranked first among the six. In this regard, at the 2025 performance briefing, Vice President Tang Shuo of Construction Bank said that to boost consumption with financial support, the bank mainly did three things: first, actively strengthen business and financial collaboration, working jointly to carry out consumption-promotion activities; second, take initiative to implement the one-stop package of fiscal- and financial-coordination policies to stimulate domestic demand; third, focus on key consumer areas, and increase financial support and innovation efforts.

Regarding innovative initiatives, Tang Shuo introduced that the bank built “Home Life” and “Car Life” platforms in Construction Bank’s mobile banking app and the “CCB Life” app using a “Circle-Chain-Group” service model. It integrated merchant resources to provide customers with an online one-stop “consumption + finance” solution covering multiple scenarios such as buying a home or car, furniture and home appliances, home renovation, property services, and fueling and maintenance.

For personal business/operating loans, all six state-owned major banks achieved positive growth. Among them, Construction Bank had the fastest year-over-year growth rate, at 28.77%. It was followed by Agricultural Bank and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, at 19.92% and 15.03%, respectively. Bank of Communications ranked fourth with growth of 11.76%. Then came Bank of China, with growth of 9.64%. Postal Savings Bank had a relatively steady growth rate of 5.32%.

In terms of operating/business loan scale, Agricultural Bank ranked first, with personal operating loan outstanding balance reaching 2.99 trillion yuan. Next were Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Postal Savings Bank, at 1.93 trillion yuan and 1.62 trillion yuan, respectively. Construction Bank and Bank of China followed, with outstanding balances of 1.32 trillion yuan and 1.04 trillion yuan, respectively. Bank of Communications had the lowest, with a balance of 462.27 billion yuan.

Regarding the outstanding performance of Agricultural Bank’s operating/business loans, Vice President Lin Li shared the bank’s distinctive approach to inclusive retail credit management at its 2025 performance briefing—centered on the customer’s household, establishing a “new perspective” on management.

Lin Li said that Agricultural Bank rolled out and promoted a unified credit assessment view for all inclusive retail customers across the bank—“unified credit granting, coordinated management, and unified risk control.” It will carry out coordinated management of various business lines under the same household operating entity, involving legal person representatives of micro and small enterprises, individual business owners and close family members, as well as personal operation, consumption, credit cards, and other types of businesses. This enables coordinated and linked action across lines and across products, effectively preventing risks such as low-threshold selection for entry, duplicate credit granting, and excessive credit usage.

Under growth, asset quality still faces challenges

However, the strong growth in consumer and business/operating loans of major banks is not the whole picture of the industry. Among the 22 listed banks whose annual reports have been disclosed, multiple small and medium-sized banks have seen year-over-year negative growth in their consumer loans and operating/business loans.

For example, as of the end of 2025, Ping An Bank’s personal operating loan outstanding balance was 251.1k yuan, down 5.22% year over year. Chongqing Bank’s personal operating loan outstanding balance was 211.6k yuan, down 4.07% year over year. Another example: CITIC Bank’s personal consumption loan outstanding balance was 8B yuan, down 9.29% year over year; Qingdao Bank’s personal consumption loan outstanding balance was 59.9k yuan, down 19.32% year over year.

In response, Dong Shimiao, chief economist at China United Network, told reporters that since 2024, large banks’ personal consumer loan growth rates have accelerated noticeably, while some smaller banks’ consumer and operating loans have been affected by factors such as “new rules for assisting loan origination,” leading some banks to experience a significant pullback. This contrast between cold and hot markets reflects the current reality that differentiation in retail credit structures across the banking industry is intensifying.

He further pointed out that from a cost perspective, major banks are able to absorb deposits at lower costs thanks to their strong networks and brand endorsements, which allows them to set interest rates at levels that smaller banks find difficult to reach when issuing consumer loans and operating loans. From a policy perspective, in 2025, major banks and joint-stock banks could receive interest subsidies on personal consumption loans, while many smaller banks were unable to participate, putting them at a disadvantage in competition.

Although major banks are leading in growth rates in scale for consumer and business/operating loans, asset quality also warrants attention. In 2025, the non-performing loan (NPL) ratios for personal consumer loans among the six state-owned banks showed a differentiated pattern. Construction Bank’s and Agricultural Bank’s NPL ratios declined somewhat. Construction Bank’s NPL ratio fell from 1.09% to 1.07%, and Agricultural Bank’s fell from 1.55% to 1.46%, indicating an improvement in asset quality. Bank of Communications, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China, and Postal Savings Bank saw slight increases in their NPL ratios. Bank of Communications had the largest increase, rising from 1.12% to 1.77%, up 0.65 percentage points; Industrial and Commercial Bank of China had the smallest rise, from 2.39% to 2.58%, up 0.19 percentage points.

For operating/business loans, the NPL ratios for personal operating loans at major state-owned banks generally rose. Only Construction Bank saw a decline, from 1.59% to 1.58%, keeping asset quality relatively stable. The NPL ratios of the other five banks increased, among which Bank of Communications had the largest rise, from 1.21% to 1.94%, up 0.73 percentage points; Postal Savings Bank had the smallest increase, from 2.21% to 2.44%, up 0.23 percentage points.

It can be seen that Construction Bank’s consumer loans and operating/business loans not only achieved near 30% year-over-year growth rates, but also maintained a steady-to-improving trend in NPL ratios, making it stand out among the six major banks. However, the NPL ratios for Construction Bank’s personal housing loans and credit card loans also rose slightly with the broader trend, so the overall NPL ratio for personal loans increased modestly from 0.98% to 1.19%.

In this regard, at its performance briefing, Li Jianjiang, Vice President of Construction Bank, said that facing the situation of rising risks in the retail sector in recent years, the bank has made strong efforts to optimize its retail business credit risk management mechanism, strengthen risk checks and balances at key points in the credit approval process, and advance the implementation of centralized risk control for retail lending. In 2025, multiple risk-control measures produced results, narrowing the year-over-year increase in the NPL ratio of personal loans. He also said that based on the current operating trend, risk prevention and control in the retail sector will remain one of the bank’s key focus areas.

At its performance briefing, Wang Jingwu, Vice President of ICBC, said that over the past two years, under the influence of multiple factors such as economic transition and upgrading, adjustments in the real-estate market, and temporary imbalances between supply and demand, ICBC’s personal loan NPL ratio has entered an upward channel in the short term, which is basically consistent with the trend across the whole industry. Considering that China’s economic foundation is solid, resilience is strong, and potential is substantial, the favorable support conditions and long-term positive fundamentals and basic trend have not changed, so the risk of personal loans in the future is controllable.

Wang Jingwu believed that, together with the accelerated rollout of a package of consumption-stimulating policies such as trade-in for old items and interest subsidies on consumer loans, as well as the continued release of policy dividends, the market foundation for personal credit will gradually improve, and the asset quality of personal loans will return to a reasonable level.

He also emphasized that to respond to market changes, ICBC has already made corresponding adjustments in its internal architecture and functions in advance. By establishing a Personal Credit Business Department, it has achieved centralized and specialized management of consumer/loan business, further improving operating performance. At the same time, it has strengthened digital and intelligent empowerment to enrich product innovation and supply in personal consumption and operating fields, coordinating and balancing development and security, focusing on mitigating various risk hidden dangers, and solidly doing a good job in the disposal of non-performing assets. With concerted efforts across the three lines of defense in joint prevention and control, the momentum of deterioration in personal loans has been slowed to some extent.