Founded on April 8, 1987 with its head office in Shenzhen, China Merchants Bank is the first share-holding commercial bank wholly owned by corporate legal entities. Since its establishment, the bank has undergone capital enlargement by 3 times, and launched IPO with the issuance of 1.5 billion common shares in March 2002, and was successfully listed in Shanghai Stock Exchange on April 9, 2002 (Stock trading Code: 600036 ). It is the first listed company passed external auditing appraisal based on the international accounting standard. After the conversion of capital reserve to share capital in May, 2004, The Bank's total shares have been increased to 6.4 billion. At present, the total asset of China Merchants Bank is above 600 billion yuan, and is ranked the top 200 among "the world 1000 banks" by British financial journal The Banker.

After 18 years of development, China Merchants Bank has transitioned itself into a national commercial bank with certain scale and influence, from a regional bank located in Shekou, Shenzhen. The Bank has been building up its business network and organizational structure with headquarter located in Shenzhen, and penetrated into both nation-wide domestic cities and overseas market. China Merchants Bank has set up branches in more than 30 major cities in China as well as in HKSAR with total business network over 400. In addition, China Merchants Bank also set up its US Representative Office in New York. At present, CMB has established correspondent relations with over 1000 banks in more than 80 countries and regions.

In the past 18 years, China Merchants Bank has undertaken a number of measures that combined market explorations and innovations in respect of products and services, which enables the bank to perform well above its peers and created dozens of 'No.1' records. The Bank has been also constantly adjusting itself in an effort to meet the ever-changing demands of the market as well as its clients. China Merchants Bank is well recognized by its clients and the general public as a bank of innovation, quality service and advanced technologies. It not only results in a reform and development of Chinese banking industry, but also allows the bank to achieve excellent business performance. As per the annual report of 2004, the accumulated taxable profit was above to 30 billion yuan. The major operating indicators such as profit per capita, return on equity ranked the top among domestic commercial banks. In the recent years, China Merchants Bank won rewards and recognition granted by a number of domestic and overseas press organizations as 'The Best Domestic Commercial Bank in China', 'The most respectable Enterprises in China', and one of 'the Top 10 Public Companies in China' respectively. 

China Merchants Bank has been adhering to the "Technology Oriented" development strategy all the time. The Bank is also fully aware of the market and customer's demands. By enacting the substantial advantages of the unified electronic platform, the Bank has launched a series of industry leading financial products and services, and also successfully built up some well-known brand names such as 'All-in-one card', 'All-in-one net', 'Sunflower', 'Go Fortune', 'China Merchants Bank Credit Card', and 'Wealth Management Account' etc. which has been widely accepted by the society as an IT-driven commercial bank. The "All-in-one card", which was launched in July, 1995, was rewarded as the milestone invention of personal banking in the industry. Up to now, the accumulated issuing volume of the card has exceeded 33 million, while the deposits per card goes beyond 4500 yuan. China Merchants Bank remains the leading position in the domestic bank card arena.

In September 1999, China Merchants Bank first launched on-line banking service platform "All-in-one net", which was once again in the leading place both in terms of technical capacity and business volume. The Bank was chosen by many leading enterprises and e-commerce websites as either the main or exclusive on-line settlement provider. In June 2, 2003, as the representative product of Chinese e-commerce and on-line banking, 'All-in-one net' was granted 'Nomination Award' by International Computer World Honors Program (CHP). It is also the unprecedented event for the Chinese enterprises.

China Merchants Bank consistently carries on the service concept of "We are here, just for you". Motivated by a number of reform and innovation on both service quality and service channel, The Bank uses its best practice to provide efficient, convenient, heart-touching services to make closer relationship with the customers, hence brought about the reform of service quality in domestic banking industry. 
 
China Merchants Bank is the first of the kind in developing a series of E-Banking distribution channel, such as On-line Banking, Phone Banking, Mobile Banking, and Self-service Banking, etc. in order to offer its clients with 'Triple A' financial services. Acting upon the principle of Market Segmentation, China Merchants Bank, expect for its efforts to provide quality services to the general public, it goes ahead further to develop 'one-to-one' tailor made services to its affluent clients with its ever-improving professional and individualized service quality. In August 2004, the bank created another 'No.1' in the country by establishing a 'Customer Satisfaction Index System' in order to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage of management and service quality.

In the course of high-speed developing era, China Merchants Bank persistently adhered to its strategic guideline of balanced development with profitability, quality and scale. The bank fostered daringly the management culture with the main focus on risk management, hence gained recognition among the piers. At the early stage, CMB has applied the guidelines on Asset-liability management, separation of assessment and loan granting, and 5-tier loan classification. Therefore, CMB has constructed a sound internal control system, meanwhile, it has also received quality management certification in deposit and accounting arena. Specifically, the ISO9001 quality assurance certificate was granted jointly by the Brutish BSI Pacific LTD and China Classification Society Quality Assurance Ltd. (CSQA). Again the bank is the first domestic commercial bank that holds such certificate.

Because of its constant effort and awareness of mitigation of the risks, the bank's asset quality is further optimized. The NPL for the newly granted loan in the past five years has been controlled within a narrow range of 1%, while the overall NPL is at 2.87% based on 5-tier classification. 

Facing the opportunities and challenges that come along with the world economic and financial globalization, China Merchants Bank will aim at achieving the target of "creating a blue-chip for the market, and building a century-lasting bank". Motivated by reform and innovation, the bank will continue the development strategy on business re-engineering, speed up the process of internationalization, and improve the comprehensive management quality based on the international standards. China Merchants Bank will continue to strengthen its core competence and strive to become a modern commercial bank with niche features as well as brand names and market recognition from the society. The bank will also make every endeavor to maximize the long-term return to shareholders, employees and customers.