Chinese Banks Rush to File for Pension Wealth Management Licences as Expansion Nears

Eligible bank wealth management subsidiaries are filing applications for pension wealth management licences in large numbers. Several wealth management companies have submitted application materials to regulators and are awaiting approval, and essentially all wealth management companies that have not yet obtained a pension wealth management licence are applying. A person at a joint-venture wealth management company said it submitted an application in 2025 and is still awaiting a response.

The pension wealth management product pilot was launched in 2021. In September 2021, the former China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission issued a notice on conducting the pilot, selecting four locations and four institutions: ICBC Wealth Management, CCB Wealth Management, CMB Wealth Management and Everbright Wealth Management. In January 2022, the regulator approved BlackRock CCB Wealth Management to conduct the pilot in Guangzhou and Chengdu. In February 2022, the pilot was expanded from four locations and four institutions to 10 locations and 10 institutions, with BlackRock CCB Wealth Management to follow the relevant rules by reference. The 10 institutions were ICBC Wealth Management, CCB Wealth Management, BOCOM Wealth Management, BOC Wealth Management, ABC Wealth Management, Postal Savings Bank Wealth Management, Everbright Wealth Management, CMB Wealth Management, Industrial Bank Wealth Management and CITIC Wealth Management, forming a 10+1 structure.

At the end of October 2025, the General Office of the National Financial Regulatory Administration issued a notice on promoting the sustained and healthy development of pension wealth management business, proposing to steadily expand the pilot. From the date of the notice, the pilot areas were expanded nationwide for a three-year period, and pilot institutions were expanded from 10+1 to wealth management companies meeting conditions including at least three years of operation and prudent management. According to a response from the regulator at a State Council Information Office press conference in January 2024, from the launch of the pilot in September 2021 to the end of January 2024, 11 wealth management companies had issued 51 products in 10 pilot cities.

The pace of pension wealth management product issuance has gradually slowed. Four products were issued in 2021, 46 in 2022 and one in 2023. The number of outstanding pension wealth management products remains 51, and no new products have been approved for issuance since the slowdown in 2023. In recent years, personal pension wealth management products have continued to be approved, with the tenth batch announced in April 2026; six institutions have now issued 39 personal pension wealth management products. The notice also proposed coordinating the pension wealth management pilot with personal pension wealth management business, under which a wealth management company participating in both may automatically include its newly issued pension wealth management products in the personal pension wealth management product list.

As of end-June 2026, the wealth management industry platform had supported 10 issuers in issuing 51 pension wealth management products during the earlier pilot, with product scale exceeding RMB 106.6 billion, linked to nine sales institutions and 466,000 investors. It had supported six issuers in issuing 39 personal pension wealth management products, with balances exceeding RMB 26.3 billion, linked to 23 sales institutions and more than 2.22 million personal pension accounts opened for investors. The Banking Wealth Management Registration and Custody Center recently conducted on-site acceptance of the industry platform systems for pension and personal pension wealth management at Agricultural Bank of China and ABC Wealth Management, and China Everbright Bank and Everbright Wealth Management. As of September 11, 2026, among pension wealth management products with available data, the highest three-year return was 19.28%, achieved by a BlackRock CCB Wealth Management R2 flexible-allocation mixed product; a BOCOM Wealth Management five-year closed-end product recorded a three-year return of over 15%; and Everbright Wealth Management's Yixiang Yangguang pension wealth management Orange 2027 series each recorded three-year returns of over 10%.