Chinese Listed Banks Outline H2 2026 Plans: Focus on Asset-Liability Management, Diversification
Multiple listed Chinese banks set their second-half 2026 operational priorities at mid-year meetings, emphasizing asset-liability management, income diversification, internationalization, and digital-intelligence transformation. Everbright Bank stressed high-quality growth, while Industrial Bank targeted active asset-liability management and cost reduction. Huaxia Bank listed 18 key tasks, including risk control and retail business improvement. Several banks strengthened risk prevention, with city commercial banks increasing the weight of risk metrics in assessments. On digitalization, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank reported over 440 AI application scenarios as of June 2026, covering marketing, operations, risk control, and management.
In 2026, multiple listed banks set their operational course for the second half of the year at mid-year working meetings. At its mid-year working meeting, Everbright Bank proposed placing greater emphasis on high-quality orientation, focusing on economic benefits, growth potential, and development value, to achieve reasonable quantitative growth and effective qualitative improvement. Industrial Bank set its tone at the half-year working meeting, calling for strengthened active asset-liability management in the second half, and pushing forward to reduce liability costs, adjust structure, and stabilize scale, thereby driving asset management improvements through high-quality liability business. One joint-stock bank proposed reducing asset-heavy businesses and increasing the scale of asset-light operations. Industrial Bank explicitly made internationalization a new growth pole, advancing international business to benchmark and catch up, promoting a good start for industrial finance, continuously enhancing the contribution of key regional branches, and strengthening off-balance-sheet businesses such as asset management and FICC. Huaxia Bank listed 18 key tasks at its half-year working meeting, including strengthening asset-liability management, broadening diversified income channels, improving the quality and sophistication of retail business, and prudently deepening treasury market operations.
Ping An Bank had set a target of "returning to growth" at the beginning of the year, and continued to steadily advance all work aligned with that goal in the second half.
Policy banks focused on serving national strategies. The Export-Import Bank of China concentrated on serving the building of a strong trading nation, actively empowering the development of new productive forces, and solidly promoting high-quality Belt and Road cooperation. The China Development Bank required precise efforts to serve real economic development, maintain stable credit growth, and carry out all work related to new policy-based financial instruments. The Agricultural Bank of China focused on serving agricultural and rural modernization, increasing credit exploration and deployment in counties, deepening comprehensive rural revitalization services; it also stepped up support for manufacturing upgrading and technological innovation, enhancing manufacturing financial service capabilities, and continuously expanding the coverage of technology finance services.
Multiple banks deployed risk prevention and control work. Industrial Bank coordinated the prevention of new risks and the resolution of existing risks, continuously reducing risk costs, and steadily improving compliance management levels. The Agricultural Bank of China, using more forward-looking and proactive measures, further strengthened credit risk prevention and control in key areas such as real estate, local government debt, and inclusive retail, and continuously consolidated internal control and compliance basic management. One city commercial bank increased the weight of risk reduction in its second-half assessment indicators, and missing the non-performing loan ratio target would affect performance evaluation.
On digital-intelligence transformation, Huaxia Bank listed strengthening digital infrastructure, shaping technology-enabled advantages, and promoting the digital upgrade of operations management as key tasks for the second half. Industrial Bank adhered to the "four empowerment" approach of research, risk, technology, and coordination, requiring deep mining of data element value to release the effectiveness of digital-intelligence empowerment. The Bank of Beijing pushed for a comprehensive upgrade of technology development toward digital-intelligence. Beijing Rural Commercial Bank accelerated digital-intelligence construction, empowering business development with digital technology. Weihai Bank adhered to the direction of market-oriented, professional, refined, and digital transformation. Xiamen Bank deepened AI empowerment and business-technology integration. Shanghai Pudong Development Bank released its main operating situation announcement for the first half of 2026, stating that as of the end of June, it had cumulatively built more than 440 AI application scenarios, covering five major areas: digital-intelligence marketing, digital-intelligence ecosystem, digital-intelligence operations, digital-intelligence risk control, and digital-intelligence management. Bank of Ningbo will continue to strengthen technology front-loading in the next phase, promote the introduction of technology talent, build a flexible organization that integrates and synergizes, and continuously enhance digital operation capabilities.
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The event has a measured impact on 1 industry. The strongest current signal is positive for Commercial Banks, with intensity 50/100 and 80% confidence over a medium term horizon.
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