Annual report blunder! China Everbright Bank's latest response

On the evening of April 1, China Everbright Bank’s H shares were announced on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that it needs to revise the information of its previously released preliminary results (i.e., the annual results announcement).

Earlier, the “compliance incident” in China Everbright Bank’s annual report version drew market attention: in the annual reports initially published on the HKEX and the SSE, several branches’ data—such as “asset size”—in the bank’s reports showed clear formatting misalignment and were mixed up. Afterwards, the SSE version was promptly corrected, but there were still significant discrepancies compared with the HKEX version data, causing the same bank’s disclosed branch asset sizes in the two locations to differ greatly.

According to the latest announcement released on the HKEX by China Everbright Bank, all of the eight branches whose data were incorrect have now been fully corrected.

The data show that, as of the end of 2025, the asset sizes of China Everbright Bank’s Shanghai Branch, Shijiazhuang Branch, Tianjin Branch, Qingdao Branch, Yantai Branch, Ningbo Branch, Shenzhen Branch, and Chengdu Branch were 4431.88 billion yuan, 1202.69 billion yuan, 1013.25 billion yuan, 980.1 billion yuan, 726 billion yuan, 818.94 billion yuan, 2866.99 billion yuan, and 961.35 billion yuan, respectively.

Previously, China Everbright Bank’s H-share annual report had labeled the asset sizes of the aforementioned branches as 395.4 billion yuan, 2866.99 billion yuan, 598.36 billion yuan, 4431.88 billion yuan, 274.74 billion yuan, 3384.88 billion yuan, 518.78 billion yuan, and 1458.84 billion yuan.

China Everbright Bank said that the correction content does not affect any other information published in the annual results announcement.

On the left is a screenshot of the revised annual report published by China Everbright Bank on the HKEX; on the right is a screenshot of the bank’s annual report published on the SSE, with the relevant data marked.

The day before this annual report data “compliance incident” took hold, China Everbright Bank had just held its 2025 annual results press conference.

The data show that in 2025, China Everbright Bank recorded operating income of 126.31 billion yuan, down 6.72% year over year; net profit was 39.14 billion yuan, down 6.61% year over year. By the end of December 2025, China Everbright Bank’s total assets surpassed 7 trillion yuan, up 2.96% from the end of the previous year to 7163.19 billion yuan.

Regarding asset quality, as of the end of December 2025, China Everbright Bank’s balance of non-performing loans was 50.742 billion yuan, up 1.49 billion yuan from the end of the previous year; the non-performing loan ratio was 1.27%, up 0.02 percentage points from the end of the previous year. The allowance coverage ratio was 174.14%, down 6.45 percentage points from the end of the previous year.

For the decline in revenue, management of China Everbright Bank responded that there are mainly three reasons: first, the decline in net interest margin constrained the growth of interest income; second, the substantial decline in bond market interest rates led to a period decline in other income; and third, the bank increased efforts to resolve risks in related businesses and to shift its operating model, leading to a period of pressure on credit card interest and fee income.

Management said that 2026 will be a year to consolidate the foundation. The bank will adhere to development in a differentiated manner, build distinctive advantages, increase income, control costs, strengthen risk controls, enhance support for related resources, and work to stabilize and improve its profitability.

Proofread by: Liao Shengchao