Annual dividends exceed 110 billion yuan! Moving towards a world-class financial institution! Highlights from ICBC's 2025 performance conference

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China’s report card for last year is out!

In 2025, the banking sector exhibited distinct phase characteristics—continuous rises to new highs in the first half of the year, a pullback in the third quarter, and recovery in the fourth quarter. This year, the total assets of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (hereinafter referred to as “ICBC”) historically exceeded 50 trillion RMB. With its leading global asset size, ICBC is still striving for more refined asset-liability management and more comprehensive services, aiming for efficiency and quality, achieving a “double increase” in revenue and net profit for the year, thereby creating stable investment returns for shareholders through its high-quality development.

“Everyone knows that achieving positive growth targets is somewhat challenging in the macro environment of gradually narrowing interest spreads.” On March 27, ICBC held its annual performance meeting for 2025, where ICBC President Liu Jun stated this. The more complex the environment, the more significant the achievements.

Whether in capital markets or industry development, ICBC undoubtedly remains in the spotlight. Liu Jun indicated that standing at a new starting point in the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, ICBC will take the lead among Chinese financial institutions in forging a new path to achieve the goal of building a world-class financial institution.

Stabilizer: Cash dividends of 110.6 billion RMB, with a dividend rate that “aligns with market expectations”

Cash dividends are a concrete manifestation of a listed company’s value creation and ability to return profits to investors. Last year, the A-share banking index rose by 12%, with ICBC’s A-share price increasing by 21.54%, ranking among the top listed banks. The outstanding performance in the capital markets brought investors the most direct dividend yields.

ICBC Board Secretary Tian Fenglin stated that since its listing in 2006, ICBC has cumulatively created cash dividend returns of 1.58 trillion RMB for shareholders, maintaining a cash dividend rate of over 30% for several consecutive years, ranking first in the total amount of A-share dividends.

In 2025, ICBC is expected to distribute a total cash dividend of 110.6 billion RMB, continuing to hold the position of the listed company with the highest total cash dividends in A-shares. Among them, a mid-term dividend of 50.4 billion RMB has been distributed, and after fulfilling corporate governance procedures, an additional year-end dividend of 60.2 billion RMB will be arranged. Based on the average annual stock price, the dividend yield for A and H shares reaches 4.22% and 5.99%, far exceeding the current fixed deposit rates and average wealth management returns.

Looking back at the stock price performance over the past year, ICBC President Liu Jun admitted: “Of course, we hope the performance could be better.” However, looking at a longer time span, Liu Jun believes, “If we can steadily achieve an average return level above average each year, then ICBC will certainly be a stabilizer in the capital markets.”

Regarding the currently highly concerned issue of increasing the cash dividend ratio, Liu Jun also gave a positive response—“Our overall capital planning and dividend arrangements will be dynamically adjusted based on the market… People have also mentioned ‘can we make corresponding upward adjustments in the dividend rate,’ and as a market barometer, ICBC will definitely respond to the market’s needs and expectations. If our adjustments can lead to healthy and sustainable market development, then ICBC will certainly play a leading role."

Liu Jun emphasized that ICBC will closely monitor changes and demands in the capital market regarding dividend arrangements, responding to everyone’s needs and voices.

Brightening Colors: A major bank with 53 trillion RMB in assets can still achieve “double increases”

The outstanding performance in the capital markets fundamentally stems from the quality of ICBC’s performance growth and intrinsic value.

By the end of the first quarter of 2025, ICBC’s total assets reached 51.5 trillion RMB, becoming the world’s first bank to exceed 50 trillion RMB in total assets; by the end of 2025, ICBC’s asset size further expanded to 53.48 trillion RMB, an increase of 9.5% from the end of the previous year.

“We have not relaxed our pursuit of efficiency and quality because of ICBC’s large size,” Liu Jun succinctly summarized the “highlights” of ICBC’s performance in the closing year of the “13th Five-Year Plan”:

First, in terms of operational efficiency, core indicators such as operating revenue, net income from fees and commissions, pre-provision profit, and net profit all achieved positive growth—ICBC achieved operating revenue of 801.395 billion RMB in 2025, an increase of 1.9% from the previous year; net profit was 370.766 billion RMB, an increase of 1% from the previous year.

Second, in terms of income structure, the net interest margin at the end of 2025 was 1.28%, a decrease of 14 basis points from the beginning of the year, with the decline gradually narrowing and showing signs of stabilization; net income from fees and commissions reached 111.2 billion RMB, a year-on-year increase of 1.6%, reversing the previous negative growth trend; other non-interest income reached 55.3 billion RMB, a year-on-year increase of 40.7%. These factors strongly supported income growth.

Third, in terms of asset quality, by the end of 2025, ICBC’s non-performing loan ratio was 1.31%, a decrease of 3 basis points from the beginning of the year, maintaining a downward trend for five consecutive years; at the same time, the provision coverage ratio reached 213.60%, with the provision balance for retained loans at 852.3 billion RMB, an increase of 36.8 billion RMB from the beginning of the year, growing by 4.5%, further enhancing the ability to cover risks.

“In 2025, the reserve capacity we created in financial income effectively improved our provision coverage capacity and provisioning reserves, preparing us better to mitigate the impact of macroeconomic cycles,” Liu Jun stated.

Breaking New Ground: Moving Towards World-Class Financial Institutions

State-owned banks are the main force in serving the real economy, and in the past year, ICBC’s main business has become more prominent and its expertise more refined.

Data shows that in 2025, ICBC’s loan issuance and bond investment “two investments” increased by 4.8 trillion RMB, among which domestic branches’ RMB loans increased by 2.17 trillion RMB, maintaining a leading position in both total and incremental financing in the market. Among them, the advantages of ICBC’s corporate credit, retail business, and financial technology are further consolidated.

ICBC Vice President Wang Jingwu introduced that by the end of 2025, ICBC’s balance of loans to the manufacturing industry industry-leadingly surpassed 5 trillion RMB, reaching 5.2 trillion RMB, with an annual growth rate of nearly 20%; corporate settlement volume in the commercial trade sector exceeded 220 billion RMB, and trade financing balance surpassed 1 trillion RMB, with over 1 million new corporate clients throughout the year.

The field of technological innovation is a “battleground” for current banking business growth, and ICBC has already gained a leading edge in this area—by the end of 2025, the balance of ICBC’s technology loans and loans for strategic emerging industries has first surpassed 6 trillion RMB and 4 trillion RMB respectively; coverage of “specialized, sophisticated, and innovative” small giant enterprises exceeded 50%, an increase of 22 percentage points from the beginning of the year.

A strong financial institution is one of the key elements in building a strong financial nation. How to promote the construction of strong financial institutions? As a leading bank in China and globally, ICBC needs to explore a new path in this area.

“A world-class financial institution has absolute standards; it is not for us to self-define what kind of institution is world-class,” Liu Jun stated. ICBC must achieve the construction goal of a world-class financial institution based on its existing foundations. If it remains primarily a loan-based asset-liability structure, “then it is still quite far from this goal.”

Therefore, Liu Jun believes that ICBC must comprehensively push for the construction of modern financial services based on an asset-liability structure primarily focused on indirect financing. In the fields of new productive forces and new infrastructure, it should transform from a simple fund intermediary to a comprehensive service provider for a series of value factors such as capital, information, efficiency, etc.

In fact, this is not the first time Liu Jun has mentioned that financial institutions should transition to being “comprehensive service providers.” At the recent China Development Forum 2026, Liu Jun systematically elaborated on this idea.

He believes that traditional flat and passive financial services can no longer fully adapt to the new demands brought about by the restructuring of the global landscape and rising economic uncertainties. It is necessary to deeply integrate full lifecycle support and full industrial chain services to build a systematic financial service framework for the real economy, transforming financial institutions into comprehensive service providers. This way, risks at individual nodes can be buffered and resolved within a multi-dimensional grid.

Specifically, Liu Jun pointed out that expanding comprehensive services means strengthening the coordination and interaction of various businesses such as commercial banking, investment banking, asset management, custody, wealth management, trading, and settlement, centered around key areas such as modern industrial system construction, technological innovation, green transformation, and regional coordinated development, to create comprehensive solutions for clients and transform its strong supply capacity into value creation capacity.

“Observing the overall income structure of world-class banks reveals an upward trend in income for modern financial services. This indicates that the capital market likely values modern financial services higher, which also requires ICBC to take the lead in exploring a new path among Chinese financial institutions to achieve the goal of building a world-class financial institution,” Liu Jun emphasized.

Embracing the Turning Point: Net interest income is expected to turn positive year-on-year this year

Capital replenishment is a focal topic in the banking industry currently. This year, the “Government Work Report” has clearly proposed to issue 300 billion RMB in special bonds to support capital replenishment, and the industry expects ICBC to be a key target for this round of special bond funding. In response, Tian Fenglin stated at the meeting that specific circumstances would be based on official announcements.

According to industry analysis, since last year, the special bond funding for state-owned commercial banks has been continuously promoted, essentially being a “precautionary measure” to further bolster the banks’ capital safety cushion, thereby better serving the real economy.

Overall, ICBC has ranked first in the global banking industry for net tier 1 capital for 13 consecutive years. By the end of 2025, ICBC’s capital adequacy ratio was 18.76%, tier 1 capital adequacy ratio was 14.94%, and core tier 1 capital adequacy ratio was 13.57%, all operating steadily within a reasonable range; the TLAC (Total Loss Absorbing Capacity) risk-weighted ratio was 21.47%, and the TLAC leverage ratio was 10.79%, both meeting regulatory requirements while retaining buffer zones.

Tian Fenglin revealed that ICBC has already formulated a new round of capital and TLAC tool issuance plans, which will be reasonably advanced according to future capital supply and demand situations and market conditions to ensure the continuous stable operation of various regulatory indicators.

Additionally, regarding the industry-wide question of whether the turning point for net interest margin decline is approaching, ICBC Vice President Yao Mingde stated that ICBC’s interest margin in 2026 is likely to show an “L-shaped” trend: although it is declining, the rate of decline is slowing, and this trend is sustainable.

“Unless there are significant adjustments to the LPR (Loan Prime Rate) and deposit listing rates, our bank’s net interest income is expected to turn positive year-on-year this year, welcoming a turning point, and the decline in net interest margin will further converge compared to 2025,” Yao Mingde stated.

His judgment is based on four main factors: first, asset-liability portfolio management is more aligned with the requirements of monetary policy adjustments; second, liability management focuses more on cost reduction and efficiency enhancement; third, large asset allocation focuses more on long-term reserves; fourth, asset-liability layout focuses more on a high-level open structure.

On the liability side, Yao Mingde pointed out that ICBC relies on its strong foundations and service capabilities in custody, settlement, and deposit management to effectively drive the accumulation of various low-cost funds; at the same time, as high-cost fixed deposits gradually mature, the impact of previous deposit listing rate adjustments has been gradually released, and loan repricing is also nearing completion, with the spread between deposits and loans expected to stabilize.

Proofread by: Pan Da

(Edited by: Dong Pingping)

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