On March 28, 2025, China Construction Bank Corporation (Stock code: SH: 601939; HK: 939) ("CCB") reported operating results for 2024 (The following data for the Group were prepared in line with International Financial Report Standard and denominated in RMB). 2024 marks the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China and the 70th anniversary of the founding of China Construction Bank. Under the strong leadership of the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, CCB firmly grasped the primary task of high-quality development, actively integrated into the general scenario of further deepening reform in an all-round way, actively explored connotative and intensive development paths in a low-interest rate environment and better balanced the effective improvement of quality and the reasonable growth in quantity and thus realized overall stable and orderly operation and achieved performances in line with expectations in all aspects.

Maintained leadership in operational quality and effectiveness

Steady and coordinated growth of assets and liabilities. As of the end of 2024, the total assets of the Group amounted to RMB 40.57 trillion, up by 5.86%. Net loans and advances totaled RMB 25.04 trillion, up by 8.48%. Total liabilities reached RMB 37.23 trillion, up by 5.90%. The balance of deposits was RMB 28.71 trillion, an increase of 3.83%. Current deposits accounted for 42% of all, maintaining a leading position in the market. The deposit interest payment rate was 1.65%, a year-on-year decrease of 12BPs, and the payable interest costs improved significantly.

Balanced and coordinated core indexes. The net profit was RMB 336.282 billion, up by 1.15%. The net interest yield rate was 1.51%, the average return on assets stood at 0.85%, and the weighted average return on equity (ROE) was 10.69%. The cost-income ratio was 29.58%. The capital adequacy ratio was 19.69% and the core Tier 1 capital adequacy ratio was 14.48%, both leading the industry. By Tier 1 capital, it has ranked the second among the top 1,000 global banks in the British Banker for 11 consecutive years.

General stable asset quality. The NPL ratio was 1.34%, down by 0.03 percentage points from the previous year; the concerned loan ratio was 1.89%, down by 0.55 percentage points from the previous year; and the overdue non-performing scissors difference remained negative. The provision coverage ratio was 233.60%, and the risk compensation capability was sufficient.

The dividend ratio remained at a relatively high level. The board of directors proposed to pay RMB 0.206 per share (tax-inclusive) of the final cash dividend for 2024, and the cash dividend is RMB 0.403 per share (tax-inclusive) for the whole year of 2024. The total dividends for the year amounted to approximately RMB 100.754 billion, accounting for 30% of the net profit attributable to shareholders of the Bank in 2024 from a group perspective.

The bank's social image improved continuously. For three years in a row, CCB's individual business has won three general grand awards from the Asian Banker. It vigorously supported the development of new productivity and was honored as the Best Science and Technology Innovation Financial Services Bank of the Year by The Financial Times and the Best Investment Bank in China by Global Finance. Its MSCI ESG rating upgraded to AAA, a world leading level, which further consolidated the foundation for sustainable development.

Remained true to our original aspiration and fully served entity economy

Precisely nourished the development of key sectors and key areas. CCB supported the implementation of proactive fiscal policies and maintained the steady growth of bond investment, with financial investments increasing by RMB 1.05 trillion, or 10.85%, on a YOY basis. It actively gave full play to the investment and financing advantages of infrastructure, industrial chain and supply chain and took all measures to serve the implementation of the nation's key initiatives and development of safety capacity at key sectors and promote a new round of large-scale equipment updating and consumer product trade-in; the balance of loans to private enterprises was RMB 5.99 trillion, an increase of 11.01%; loans to the manufacturing industry were RMB 3.04 trillion, an increase of 12.25%; loans for strategic emerging industries were RMB 2.84 trillion, an increase of 26.63%. CCB efficiently implemented the national regional strategies. Corporate non-discount loans in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region, Yangtze River Delta, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and Chengdu-Chongqing Region increased by more than RMB 770 billion, and CCB has taken new steps in serving the quality construction of Xiong'an New Area with high standard. It promoted the integrated development of urban and rural areas. The balance of agriculture-related loans reached RMB 3.33 trillion, an increase of 8.16%; the balance of county-level loans was RMB 5.45 trillion, an increase of 9.84%.

Helped boost consumption and people's livelihood. CCB actively availed the advantages of retail credit and strengthened the consumer product trade-in with financial supports. The balance of the individual consumption loan was RMB 527.895 billion, up by 25.21%; the balance of the credit card loan exceeded RMB one trillion for the first time in the industry. "CCB Life" distributed consumption coupons in a value of RMB 7.696 billion in 196 cities, driving domestic consumptions of RMB 74.2 billion. CCB released the first individual mortgage loan for the allocation pattern of indemnificatory housing in China. It optimized payment services and continued improving the convenience of payment for the elderly, foreign visitors to China and other major groups.

Took all measures to implement a package of incremental policies. CCB implemented the coordination mechanism for urban real estate financing, took solid measures to ensure "guaranteed delivery of housing" and "white list" and strongly supported the construction of the "three major projects". It efficiently promoted the adjustment of individual housing loan interest rates and helped reduce the financing cost of residents. CCB expanded industrial scenarios, strengthened product updating and supply and promoted the implementation and deepening of the financing coordination mechanism for small and micro-size enterprises. It strengthened the allocation of loans for stock buyback and purchase and promoted the implementation of pilot equity investment funds of the asset investment companies (AIC) in Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou and Hefei.

Supported high-level opening-up. CCB strengthened the integration of local and foreign currency services and stabilized foreign trade and foreign investment services. The trade financing reached RMB 2.15 trillion, and cross-border RMB settlement exceeded RMB 5 trillion in the whole year. The clearing bank in the UK had maintained its status as the largest RMB clearing bank outside Asia. CCB vigorously supported the economic integration of the RCEP region and provided all-round financial supports for high-quality development of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Improved financial quality and efficiency of "five major measures"

Deepened comprehensive services with technology and finance. CCB created the sci-tech innovative evaluation tools such as "Technology Flow", and "Investment Flow" to promote the internal evaluation method of intellectual property mortgage financing and improve the availability of financing for technology-based enterprises. It accelerated the construction of specialized institutions for science and technology finance and promulgated differentiated policies. It deepened comprehensive financial services relating to "stocks, loans, debts and insurances" to inject strong development momentum for new productivity. The balance of loans to science and technology-related industries exceeded RMB 3.50 trillion and 72 issues of science and technology innovation bills were underwritten, with an underwriting scale of RMB 19.013 billion.

Diversified the product series with green finance. CCB established a coordinated promotion mechanism for green development, gave full play to the group's multi-license advantages and strengthened green product innovation. The balance of green loans was RMB 4.7 trillion, up by 20.99%; it underwrote 112 green and sustainable development bonds at home and abroad, with an underwriting scale of RMB 186.39 billion. It promoted the development of green investment and financing business of subsidiaries and widely supported green industries. It deepened the Group's low-carbon operations and strengthened carbon footprint management.

Expanded the scope and improved the quality with inclusive finance. The total provision of credits of inclusive finance was stably increased, and the loan balance of inclusive finance reached RMB 3.41 trillion; there were 3.36 million clients, up by 185,100 over a year earlier. Online and offline services will be integrated deeply to meet the needs of enterprises throughout the life cycle. There were 24.51 million registered individual users and 14.14 million certified corporate users on the "CCB Huidongni" platform. About 14,000 outlets provided inclusive finance services through more than 22,000 inclusive finance specialists, including 2,880 certified outlets with inclusive finance characteristics.

Further deepened the ecology with pension finance. CCB released the group's unified brand of pension finance "JianYangAn" to develop CCB into a "professional bank for pension finance". It steadily expanded the social security card business and strove to improve card user experience. It actively expanded the coverage of the pension system; the scale of two CCB's pillar asset management funds of pensions exceeded RMB 620 billion. It launched the "Pension China Tour" to actively promote the personal pension system nationwide. CCB developed innovative pension service loan products and prioritized the pension industry in credit support. It launched the "Easy Version" pension zone of mobile banking and created 60 "JianYangAn" outlets of pension finance to comprehensively improve the service level for elderly nursing.

Enabled the combination of digital and real services with digital finance. CCB supported the digital industrialization development. The balance of the loans to support the core industry of the digital economy amounted to nearly RMB 800 billion. It improved the effects of digitally-enabled business. "CCB Cloud" maintained its leading position in the industry in terms of overall computing power and service capability. The number of mobile banking and CCB Life "Dual" users reached 521 million and the number of financial transaction users reached 184 million in the year. It innovated the application scenarios of e-CNY and the cumulative number of consumption transactions ranked the first in the industry.

Deepened reform and improved the management system

Optimized the top-level design of the group's management framework. CCB improved the internal system and mechanism; made efforts to create a corporate governance system with clear rights and responsibilities and coordinated operation, a collaborative, efficient, professional and dedicated customer service system, a comprehensive, active and effectively-balanced risk internal control system, an agile, safe and reliable information technology system and an open, intensive, intelligent and efficient channel operation system so as to stimulate the endogenous momentum of high-quality development.

Strengthened the support of channel operation through science and technology. CCB accelerated the construction of independent, controllable, safe and efficient digital finance infrastructures and fully completed the distributed transformation of core systems. It improved the efficiency of all channels, optimized the scope and process of intensive operation of outlets and improved the data governance system. It actively integrated into the open technology ecosystem, and promoted the application of artificial intelligence in intelligent customer service, customer marketing, credit approval, risk management and other fields from an enterprise-level perspective. Currently, an inferential financial big model based on DeepSeek-R has taken shape, and private deployment in production environment has completed, enabling the group-wide application scenarios. New computilities like CCB GPU has accounted for 23.39% of the total computilities, fully supporting the training and application requirements of the financial big models.

Took collaborative risk controls to establish a safety bottom line. CCB continued to improve the comprehensive, proactive and intelligent modern risk management system; improved the three-dimensional risk governance structure with "three defense lines" and promoted the penetrated and differentiated management of overseas institutions. It resolved risks in key areas like real estate and local government bonds in a prudent and orderly manner and strengthened intensive risk prevention and control in the areas of inclusive and retail loans. It adhered to sound and compliant operations and strengthened the development of an employee code of conduct, a case prevention and control mechanism and an accountability mechanism to effectively protect the rights and interests of consumers and ensure safe production and operation.

 

2025 is the final year of the "14th Five-Year Plan" and the year of compiling the "15th Five-Year Plan". The supporting conditions and basic trends of China's long-term economic growth have not changed. CCB will always adhere to the guidance of Xi Jinping's Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era; take it as the fundamental principle of reform and development to further enhance the ability to serve national construction, prevent financial risks and participate in international competitiveness; fully implement the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the 2nd and 3rd Plenary Sessions of the 20th Central Committee, as well as the spirit of the Central Economic Work Conference and the Central Financial Work Conference; stick to its primary responsibilities and businesses; enhance its development confidence; maintain its strategic patience; be a good financial service provider, industrial reform promoter and social value creator and develop a more efficient, sustainable and secure path of high-quality development.