Wealth Management Battle for Funds Intensifies: 2 Trillion Yuan Club Expands, Agency Channels Become the Key to Victory

In recent days, wealth management companies have successively released their 2025 second-half wealth management business reports. Combining this with the 2025 annual reports published by listed banks, a reporter from China Securities Journal found that last year many wealth management companies’ assets under management achieved significant growth. The “two-trillion-yuan club” expanded to include five companies: CMB Wealth, Xingyin Wealth, Xinyin Wealth, ABC Wealth, and ICBC Wealth. When reviewing the reasons behind the growth in scale, multiple wealth management companies cited expanded distribution channels and optimized product layouts.

Faced with the opportunity for residents to reallocate time deposits, the wealth management industry has a promising development outlook. Doing a good job in customer service, and improving investors’ holding experience and sense of gain, are the required answers for wealth management companies.

Xinyin Wealth’s AUM Climbs to Third

Data from China Wealth Management Network shows that at the end of 2025, the outstanding wealth management scale of wealth management companies was RMB 3.071 trillion, up 16.72% year over year. In terms of assets under management, CMB Wealth, Xingyin Wealth, and Xinyin Wealth ranked among the top three as of the end of 2025, with asset management scales of RMB 2.64 trillion, RMB 2.43 trillion, and RMB 2.30 trillion, respectively. Meanwhile, ABC Wealth and ICBC Wealth also surpassed RMB 2 trillion, expanding the two-trillion-yuan club to the five companies mentioned above.

Among them, Xinyin Wealth saw relatively faster growth in AUM in 2025, ranking third. At the same time, the rankings of ABC Wealth and ICBC Wealth both fell by one position. In its annual report, China CITIC Bank stated that in 2025, Xinyin Wealth fully responded to investors’ increasingly diversified wealth management needs. On the basis of doing well as a main supplier of fixed-income products, it strove to become an important supplier of products with embedded options. As of the end of 2025, the outstanding scale of option-embedded products was RMB 337.461 billion, up RMB 148.959 billion from the end of the previous year. The proportion of newly issued products increased from 9.68% to 14.70%. The company also accelerated improvements in its capability to invest in equity assets. Through multi-asset and multi-strategy portfolio investments, it effectively enhanced wealth management returns.

In 2025, the AUM growth at multiple wealth management companies was impressive. As of the end of 2025, Guangda Wealth, Xinyin Wealth, China Post Wealth, and Minsheng Wealth all saw their AUM increase by more than RMB 300 billion compared with the beginning of the year. Among wealth management companies affiliated with joint-stock banks, Bo Yin Wealth and Ning Yin Wealth both recorded year-over-year AUM growth of more than 40%. For the two Sino-foreign joint-venture wealth management companies—Faba ABC Wealth and HUIHUA Wealth—their AUM growth each exceeded 100%.

Kong Xiang, head of non-bank financial services at Guosen Securities, said that based on aggregated data, in 2025 the scale of wealth management products under the sampled wealth management companies grew 13% year over year, while total net profit grew 16% year over year. Profit growth was faster than scale growth, which is related to the industry’s general practice of reducing cash management-category products and increasing the share of multi-asset products. The latter charges higher management fees and also has the opportunity to obtain performance-based splits. With deposit interest rates declining, after residents’ time deposits mature, they seek “low-volatility, stable-return” products as substitutes. This has promoted the significant expansion of multi-asset wealth management products.

Emphasize Product Optimization and Distribution Expansion

By reviewing the 2025 annual reports of various banks, it can be seen that expansion of distribution channels and optimization of product layouts are important engines behind wealth management companies’ scale growth.

Taking Guangda Wealth as an example: as of the end of 2025, the company’s total managed assets were RMB 19,459.63 billion, up RMB 3,464.75 billion year over year. In its annual report, Guangda Bank stated that in 2025 it deepened the construction of the “Seven-Colored Sunshine” product system. It focused on strengthening professional multi-asset and multi-strategy investment research capabilities, and on responding to market demand through diversified allocations. As of the end of 2025, the balance of outstanding hybrid-category wealth management products at Guangda Wealth was RMB 1,842.40 billion, accounting for 9.47% of the company’s total wealth management product amount. This ratio is at a relatively high level within the industry.

The growth of China Post Wealth’s management scale is also outstanding. In its annual report, Postal Savings Bank stated that as of the end of 2025, the scale of China Post Wealth’s products was RMB 13,171.52 billion, up 28.81% from the end of the previous year. Both the increase and growth rate ranked among the top in the industry. Specifically, Postal Savings Bank’s channel scale increased by RMB 2,029.44 billion, and the scale of third-party distribution increased by RMB 841.79 billion. It is worth noting that China Post Wealth accelerated the expansion of third-party distribution. It had signed cumulative agreements with 58 off-bank distribution channels, with the coverage rate of large channels leading in the industry. The number of institutional clients increased by 9.19%. The institutional client marketing and new-client acquisition service system—covering distribution through the parent bank, off-bank distribution, and direct sales—continued to be refined and improved. The growth in management scale also drove improvements in China Post Wealth’s performance. In the first half of 2025, China Post Wealth achieved operating income of RMB 1.976 billion and net profit of RMB 1.171 billion. Compared with 2024, both indicators increased by 14.55% and 13.69%, respectively.

Bo Yin Wealth’s product scale also grew significantly. As of the end of 2025, Bo Yin Wealth’s managed product scale was RMB 2,489.32 billion, up RMB 830.97 billion from the end of 2024, a growth rate of 50.11%. In its annual report, Bohai Bank stated that Bo Yin Wealth achieved notable results in expanding off-bank distribution channels. As of the end of 2025, it had reached distribution cooperation with 116 off-bank institutions. The off-bank distribution channels cover state-owned major banks, joint-stock banks, city and rural commercial banks, private banks, and others. The scale of wealth management products distributed through off-bank channels was RMB 748.07 billion, up RMB 506.56 billion from the end of 2024, a growth of 209.75%. It is worth noting that although the management scale increased significantly, Bo Yin Wealth’s performance growth was relatively small. In 2025, Bo Yin Wealth achieved operating income of RMB 417 million and net profit of RMB 222 million; compared with 2024, these indicators increased by 0.72% and 0.45%, respectively.

An industry insider said that developing off-bank distribution channels helps quickly increase managed scale, but it is also necessary to tilt high-quality assets toward off-bank distribution channels. Care for in-bank clients may inevitably be less comprehensive.

Strive to Improve Investors’ Sense of Gain

Against the backdrop of relatively fast growth across the industry overall, the AUM growth of some wealth management companies has stalled or even declined. Ping An Bank’s annual report shows that as of the end of 2025, the balance of Ping An Wealth’s wealth management products was RMB 10,922.11 billion, down about 10% year over year. In 2025, Ping An Wealth achieved net profit of RMB 1.476 billion, down more than 20% from the previous year. By comparing the interim wealth management business report released by Ping An Wealth, it can be found that in 2025 the scale of fixed-income category products decreased by RMB 1,186.17 billion, which was the main factor leading to the company’s AUM decline.

The aforementioned wealth management industry source told the reporter that last year Ping An Wealth implemented strategic transformation, mainly relying on the parent bank to conduct sales and reducing off-bank distribution. This may be an important reason for the company’s AUM decline last year.

Qingyin Wealth also had an unfavorable year in 2025. In 2025, Qingyin Wealth achieved operating income of RMB 402 million and net profit of RMB 187 million, down 26.91% and 37.04%, respectively, compared with 2024.

Tan Yiming, chief fixed-income analyst at Tienfeng Securities, said that after the wealth management industry’s net-asset-value (NAV) model is fully implemented, it is impossible to avoid market fluctuations, and product experience may be reshaped. In the short term, given the trend of residents reallocating deposits and the relatively strong advantages that wealth management products currently still have in terms of channels and yields, they can still absorb some residents’ maturing time deposits. From a medium- to long-term perspective, if customers’ product holding experience continues to be unsatisfactory, there is no exclusion of the possibility of scale outflows.

Amid diversified needs, multiple wealth management companies focus on improving investors’ holding experience and sense of gain. Bo Yin Wealth said that the company continues to enrich its product shelf, striving to improve product performance and create stable value for broad investors. It has focused on launching hybrid-category and fixed-income enhanced wealth management products, and has formed a multi-strategy product matrix such as “fixed income + dividends, diversified, convertible bonds, gold, IPO subscriptions, time deposits and negotiable certificates of deposit (CDs), and industry rotation.” This provides customers with differentiated product supply to meet different wealth management needs. In 2025, there were 253 maturing closed-ended products; the redemption rate for the lower bound of the performance benchmark was 99.60%. It served more than 1.10 million investors and created returns exceeding RMB 4.8 billion for investors.

Xiao Feifei, chief analyst for the banking industry at CITIC Securities, believes that in 2026, the wealth management industry needs to focus on three areas: optimizing asset allocation strategies, optimizing product design, and strengthening investor education. Wealth management companies should establish a mindset of allocating across diversified broad asset classes, achieving balanced allocation across multiple product types such as fixed income, equities, and commodities. By allocating to assets such as stocks, gold, and REITs, they can diversify the risk of a single bond market. They can also hedge interest-rate risk by using strategies such as derivatives. In addition, by nurturing a risk investment philosophy and strengthening management of investors’ risk expectation, they should further refine and improve the relevant systems related to investor suitability management, strengthen full-chain information disclosure for products, and provide risk reminders.