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 36 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 2022, CMB had 143 branches (including Free Trade Zone branch, etc.) and 1,756 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 110,000. In 2022, CMB ranked 174th on the Fortune Global 500 List, and 11th on the list of "Top 1,000 World Banks" 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 customers’ needs of comprehensive and differentiated solutions.
In recent years, with a strategic vision of “building the best value creation bank with innovation-driven development, leading model and distinguished features”, CMB continuously deepened strategic transformation and achieved dynamically balanced development of “Quality, Efficiency and Scale”. As at the end of 2022, CMB's total assets reached RMB10.14 trillion, ranking 6th in domestic banking industry. Net operating income and net profit were RMB344.783 billion and RMB138.012 billion respectively, both ranking 5th in the industry. The return on average assets (ROAA) and the return on average equity (ROAE) were 1.42% and 17.06% respectively, both ranking 1st among large-to-medium sized listed banks in domestic market. 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 persisted in differentiated development and established distinctive service features. In retail banking business, CMB has developed increasingly leading advantages. As at the end of 2022, CMB had 184 million retail customers with an AUM of RMB12.12 trillion. It had over 130,000 private banking customers with an AUM of RMB3.79 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 terms of transaction volume of the credit card business. The two APPs, namely CMB APP and CMB Life App, recorded a combined MAU (monthly active users) of 111 million.
In wholesale banking business, as at the end of 2022, CMB had 2.526 million corporate customers, with an FPA (financing products aggregate) totaling RMB5.12 trillion. In order to provide differentiated and comprehensive financial solutions to customers, CMB constructed a unique service system featured by customer segmentation and classification, professional service capability with industry-based insights, service model which integrates investment banking and commercial banking business, and service mechanism of “One Entire Bank for One Customer (全行服务一家)”. In investment banking and financial markets business, CMB completed a number of representative projects in M&A, privatization, mixed ownership reform of state-owned enterprises, equity investment business, etc. In asset management business, CMB Wealth Management ranked 1st in terms of its management scale; total volume of asset custody business also topped the industry. In digital transformation, CMB preliminarily constructed its new Fintech infrastructure of “One Cloud + Two Middle Offices (namely data office and tech office)”. It focused on online, data-based, intelligent, platform-based and ecological development to fully construct a “Digital CMB” and contribute to building a “Digital China”
Solid work produces extraordinary results. In the future, on the basis of strengthening the result of retail banking and light-model banking strategies, CMB will uphold its strategic goal of building a value creation bank, maximize the comprehensive value it creates for customers, staff, shareholders, partners and society, better serve the transformation and upgrading of national economy as well as the improvement of people's livelihood, and make solid financial contribution to the modernization with Chinese characteristics. It will persist to promote the coordinated development among four major business segments of retail banking, wholesale banking, investment banking and financial markets, as well as wealth management and asset management business. CMB will further strengthen capital-heavy business, optimize and expand capital-light business, and enhance its existing advantages to build the new Malik Curve, so as to introduce the next stage of high-quality development.