Big six lenders' net profits top 1.1 trillion yuan

A teller counts cash at a bank branch in Hangzhou, capital of East China's Zhejiang province. Photo by Hu Jianhuan/For China Daily)

China's big six State-owned banks turned in their 2019 performance data on Monday, with net profit topping 1.1 trillion yuan ($155.18 billion), The Paper reported.

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Bank of Communications and Postal Savings Bank of China posted total net profit of 1.12 trillion yuan attributable to shareholders last year, or 3.06 billion yuan per day.

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the biggest bank in the world, retained its crown with net profits of 312.22 billion yuan, while Postal Savings Bank of China ranked bottom among the six with 60.93 billion yuan.

Among the six lenders, Postal Savings Bank of China recorded the highest growth in net profit attributable to shareholders, with a double digit rate of 16.48 percent. The other five banks' net profit growth didn't see much difference, ranging from 4 to 5 percent.

Compared with the end of 2018, six banks saw big changes in asset scale. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China's assets surpassed 30 trillion yuan, ranking first, followed by China Construction Bank.

Agricultural Bank of China and Bank of China ranked third and fourth, respectively. Postal Savings Bank of China overtook Bank of Communications to become the fifth-biggest bank in China.

In terms of asset quality, except for Postal Savings Bank of China, whose nonperforming loan ratio remained unchanged from the previous year, the other five banks all saw declines in their NPL ratios.

The NPL ratio of Bank of Communications was 1.47 percent by the end of last year, the highest, while Postal Savings Bank of China saw the figure at 0.86 percent, the lowest.

Meanwhile, Agricultural Bank of China experienced a decline in balance of nonperforming loans, while the other five have increased from the end of 2018.

Due to the effect of the epidemic, bank executives predicted this year's asset quality would fall to some extent. However, they still remained confident about stable operations.

In total, this year the bank will see increasing pressure on asset management due to the epidemic. "We have adopted active measures to deal with these impact and pressure," said Gu Shu, president of ICBC.

At present, the number of micro and small-sized enterprises applying to extend their payments on principal and interest only accounted for five percent of the total, Gu added.