In 1987, China Merchants Bank (CMB) was founded in Shekou Shenzhen, the forefront of China's reform and opening-up campaign. CMB is China's first joint-stock commercial bank wholly owned by corporate legal entities and also the first pilot bank as China promoted banking industry reform with endeavors from outside of the government. After 35 years of growth, it has evolved into a banking group listed in both Shanghai and Hong Kong, with financial licenses covering commercial banking, financial leasing, fund management, life insurance, overseas investment banking, consumer finance, and wealth management subsidiary, etc. CMB has developed distinctive features and significant market influence from a global perspective.
As at the end of the first half of 2022, CMB had 143 branches (including Free Trade Zone branch, etc.) and 1,771 sub-branches, covering over 130 cities in Chinese mainland. For overseas markets, CMB had six branches and two representative offices. Total number of employees exceeded 100,000. In 2022, CMB ranked 174th on the Fortune Global 500 List, and 11th on the list of "Top 1,000 World Banks 2022" released by The Banker (UK), making top 20 for the fifth consecutive year. From 2019 to 2022, CMB was the "Best Bank in China" as selected by Euromoney, marking the first "4 Consecutive Championships" in Euromoney's awarding history.
Since its inception, CMB has kept in mind the original aspiration of "building a real commercial bank for China", adhered to the principle of staying "market-oriented, customer-centric, tech-driven and expert-led", and promoted sustainable social and economic progress through its own transformation and development: it took the lead in launching "All-in-One Card", making cash withdrawals and deposits possible across the nation and guiding the industry out of the bankbook era; it was the first to measure AUM (assets under management) instead of deposits, introducing diversified allocation for social wealth; it pioneered the "integration of investment banking and commercial banking businesses", serving the evolving needs of the new growth engine sector for financing; it led the campaign of digital transformation, opened up growth potential by tapping into ecosystems and built a "Digital CMB"; it introduced "Zhao Zhao Bao", a wealth management offering that integrates customers' principal accounts of wealth management and settlement; it offered an open platform that redefined industry competition and cooperation ...
In recent years, by continuously promoting the strategic transformation of "Light-model Bank", CMB has achieved a dynamic balance among "quality, profitability and scale". As at the end of September 2022, CMB's total assets reached RMB 9.7 trillion, ranking 7th in domestic banking industry. Net operating income and net profit were RMB264.8 billion and RMB106.9 billion respectively, both ranking 5th in the industry. The return on average assets (ROAA) and the return on average equity (ROAE) ranked 1st and 2nd in the market respectively. CMB secured its leading position of P/B ratio in comparison with large-to-medium sized banks listed in both A-share and H-share markets.
CMB has developed distinctive service features. In retail banking business, it is renowned as the "King of Retail". As at the end of September 2022, CMB had 182 million retail customers with an AUM of around RMB12 trillion. It had over 130,000 private banking customers, with an AUM of over RMB3.7 trillion, ranking 1st in the industry. It was awarded the "Best Private Bank in China" by Euromoney for twelve consecutive years. CMB also topped the industry in the existing and incremental volume of wealth management products and mutual funds. For credit card business, CMB ranked 1st in the industry in terms of transaction volume. CMB APP and CMB Life App recorded a combined MAU (monthly active users) of 107 million.
In wholesale banking business, as at the end of September 2022, CMB had 2.47 million corporate customers, with an FPA (financing products aggregate) totaling RMB5.15 trillion (June end, 2022). Leveraging on its advantages of full-licensed operation and its mechanism of creativity, openness and integration, CMB developed a comprehensive, differentiated business model of "ICPTR": it integrated offerings and services from investment banking (I), commercial banking (C), private banking (P), technology (T) and research (R), and delivered solutions that satisfied comprehensive needs from corporate customers. CMB maintained industry-leading positions in many segments: its volume of bill rediscounting and commercial acceptance bill discounting both ranked 1st in the industry; it completed a number of representative projects in M&A, privatization, mixed ownership reform of state-owned enterprises, equity investment business, etc.; its assets under custody exceeded RMB20 trillion, ranking 1st in the industry.
In asset management business, CMB Wealth Management ranked 1st in terms of its management scale and China Merchants Funds secured a top-5 industry ranking in terms of non-monetary fund volume.
In digital transformation, CMB's online operation could cover 98% of non-cash services for retail customers and 96% of standard services for corporate customers. CMB's host cloud migration was basically completed and retail service experienced zero system interruption, introducing the era of cloud service.
Solid work produces extraordinary results. In the future, CMB will uphold the original aspiration of staying customer-centric, deepen the "Light-model Bank" transformation, actively explore the 3.0 model featuring "an extensive wealth management business model, a digital operational model, and an open and integrated organizational model", better serve the transformation and upgrading of national economy as well as the improvement of people's livelihood, and introduce the next stage of high-quality development.