Bank of Communications 2025: Emphasizing Quality and Efficiency, AI as the Highlight!

Source: Shiyanshi

The interest spread stabilizes, the non-performing rate drops for the fifth straight time, AI accelerates… Bank of Communications responds to industry changes with stability and innovation.

Produced by | Shiyanshi

Author | Multi-Dimensional Finance Working Group

In 2025, the operating environment for the banking industry faces the challenges of “the low-interest-rate norm and risk becoming phased.” Bank of Communications, however, delivers a set of results showing growth against the trend.

Data shows that, as of the end of 2025, the bank’s total assets exceeded 15.5 trillion yuan, up 4.35% from the end of the prior year. For the full year, operating income was 265.071 billion yuan, up 2.02% year over year. Net profit attributable to the parent was 95.622 billion yuan, up 2.18% year over year, which translates to roughly 262 million yuan per day—its profitability continues to improve steadily.

Steady growth in performance

Dividends for 14 consecutive years above 30%

In a horizontal comparison, the growth rate of Bank of Communications is particularly eye-catching. The 2025 annual reports of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank, and Postal Savings Bank show that the four large state-owned banks all achieved double growth in both revenue and net profit year over year, but Bank of Communications’ growth rate clearly leads the other three. Its growth in both operating income and net profit attributable to the parent significantly outpaced the other three large state-owned banks, making it a true “growth-rate vanguard.”

Narrowing net interest margin is a common pressure the banking industry has faced in recent years, and in 2025 Bank of Communications was no exception. The annual report shows that the bank’s full-year net interest margin was 1.20%, down 7 basis points year over year, mainly due to a decline in asset-side yields. Factors such as the LPR cut and intense industry competition led to a year-over-year drop of 58 basis points in customer loan yields, while the downward shift in the market interest-rate center also drove a 25 basis-point decline in securities investment yields.

That said, it is worth noting that Bank of Communications was among the first to achieve net interest margin stabilization. “Starting from the third quarter of 2024, the interest spread has basically remained stable. As a large amount of time deposits mature and are repriced, the cost of paying interest on deposits will clearly decline.”

At a performance briefing, Zhou Wanfu, Executive Director and Vice President of Bank of Communications, revealed that in 2026 the bank’s maturing time-deposit amount will increase markedly compared with last year, and a larger portion will be concentrated in the first quarter—this will provide important support for improving the interest spread, and the bank is expected to keep the interest spread stable and improving throughout the year.

To consolidate the stabilization of the interest spread, Bank of Communications has clarified three areas to focus on: strictly manage the balance of deposit and loan volumes and pricing; implement deposit and loan pricing management in a refined manner to align with the requirements of pricing self-discipline; and scientifically optimize the asset-liability structure. Against the backdrop of “the Fifteenth Five-Year Plan” banking industry profitability models facing pressure, this refined management approach has become a key lever for Bank of Communications to respond to the challenge of narrowing interest spread.

The stable growth in performance provides solid support for shareholder returns. According to the profit distribution plan, Bank of Communications plans to distribute 14.880 billion yuan in cash dividends in 2025. Combined with the interim dividends already distributed, the total dividends for the full year will reach 28.692 billion yuan, with the cash dividend payout ratio rising to 32%, up by nearly 2% from 2024.

“During the ‘14th Five-Year Plan’ period, we have cumulatively distributed cash dividends of 123.9 billion yuan to all shareholders, and the payout ratio has stayed above 30% for 14 consecutive years.” Zhang Baojiang, Vice Chairman and President of Bank of Communications, said at the performance briefing. In 2026, the bank will continue to return shareholders with solid performance and stable dividend payouts, demonstrating the responsibility and担当 of a state-owned large bank.

Precise response to retail risk

Non-performing rate “down for five consecutive times” reaching a decade low

On asset quality, Bank of Communications has also delivered a satisfactory answer.

As of the end of 2025, the bank’s balance of non-performing loans was 116.983 billion yuan, up 5.306 billion yuan from the end of the prior year. The non-performing loan ratio was 1.28%, down 0.03 percentage points from the end of the prior year. This non-performing loan ratio has remained on a downward trend for five consecutive years, hitting the lowest level in nearly a decade.

However, Bank of Communications’ vice president Gu Bin frankly noted that the bank’s current asset quality pressure is relatively greater in retail lending and small business lending. In 2025, the incremental non-performing loans mainly came from this. Affected by the macroeconomic environment and the downturn in the real estate market, as of the end of 2025, the bank’s personal loan non-performing loan ratio was 1.58%.

Facing risk pressure in 2026, Bank of Communications has already clarified its risk-control path. It will integrate internal resources to strengthen retail risk control capabilities, and coordinate the entire process work such as credit approval, post-loan monitoring, and overdue collection—from “passively putting out fires” to “actively reinforcing.”

“We will carry out a special action to improve retail asset quality in 2026, adhering to ‘clearing sediment, improving flow, and plugging leaks’ in three parallel measures, striving to reverse the downward trend in retail credit asset quality as soon as possible.” Gu Bin emphasized.

Meanwhile, Bank of Communications also pays close attention to risks during the process of stabilizing the real estate market, as well as the risk of business divergence among enterprises brought by homogenous competition in some industries, thereby building a risk firewall in all directions.

投入123亿押注AI

Accelerating and switching up digital transformation

Behind performance growth and risk prevention and control is inseparable from strong technological investment.

In 2025, Bank of Communications’ financial technology investment reached 12.342 billion yuan, up 6.81% year over year. As a share of operating income, it rose to 5.78%. This is also why the bank has kept technology investment at more than 10 billion yuan for 4 consecutive years. From 2022 to 2024, its technology investment was 11.631 billion yuan, 12.027 billion yuan, and 11.433 billion yuan, respectively. Continuous investment has laid a solid foundation for digital transformation.

Personnel allocation was upgraded in parallel. As of the end of 2025, Bank of Communications had 9,782 financial technology staff, up 8.20% from the end of the prior year, and they accounted for nearly 10% of total employees. This was up 0.55 percentage points year over year. The expansion of its talent pool provides assurance for the rollout of technology.

Of note is that, compared with previous years, Bank of Communications mentioned “AI” and “artificial intelligence” in its 2025 annual report with clearly increased frequency, reaching 30 times. These terms have already become one of the keywords for the bank’s future development.

Bank of Communications’ Vice President and Chief Information Officer Qian Bin introduced that in 2025 the bank further released its Bank of Communications “Artificial Intelligence+” action plan. The bank’s scale of intelligent computing grew by more than 50% compared with the prior year, and it has cumulatively deployed more than 2,500 AI intelligent agent assistants.

According to Bank of Communications’ annual report, it has already implemented multiple AI application scenarios, such as new AI product interpretations in the wealth management system and functions including AI-assisted generation of investment research and market viewpoints. It also uses AI and other technologies to support online and automated processing for financial consumer protection reviews, complaint management, and financial education. In addition, it has launched intelligent assistants to enable AI intelligent agents’ applications in corporate e-banking channels, among other uses.

Tian Lihui, a professor of finance at Nankai University, pointed out that when listed banks push “Artificial Intelligence+Finance,” it marks that the banking industry’s digital transformation has entered a new stage of moving from informatization toward digital intelligence. This is both an inevitable choice for addressing narrowing interest spreads and operating under pressure, and a strategic move to reshape core competitiveness.

From the perspective of application scenarios, intelligent customer service, knowledge Q&A, intelligent review, intelligent programming, and content generation are the specific scenarios ranking in the top five by number of winning projects. And intelligent agents are becoming a key direction for financial institutions to deepen their application of large models, with market attention gradually heating up.

Against the backdrop of deep changes in the banking industry in “the Fifteenth Five-Year Plan” period, Bank of Communications has bet on AI with 12.3 billion yuan of technology investment, uses refined management to address interest spread pressure, and actively prevents and resolves risk challenges. This not only reflects the steady baseline of a state-owned large bank, but also shows a forward-looking plan for digital transformation.

Looking ahead, as AI applications continue to deepen, interest spread dividends are gradually released, and asset quality controls continue to be strengthened, Bank of Communications is expected to continue leading along the path of high-quality development and provide practical sample cases that the banking industry can learn from to support its transformation.

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