China Fund News reporter Zhang Ling
On March 28, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) held its 2023 annual results conference, at which Chairman Liao Lin and four vice presidents, Zhang Weiwu, Duan Hongtao, Wang Jingwu and Yao Mingde, as well as Secretary of the Board of Directors Guan Xueqing, appeared at the conference to introduce ICBC's operation in 2023 and answer questions about the market.
The scene of the press conference in Beijing, courtesy of reporters
Liao Lin, chairman of ICBC, said that in 2023, ICBC has achieved stable progress, solid stability, and stable business performance. The "Five Modernizations Transformation" is the future development direction, that is, the layout is modernized, the risk control is intelligent, the kinetic energy is digital, the structure is diversified, and the basic ecology is established.
"ICBC's positioning is to be the main force serving the real economy, the ballast stone for maintaining financial stability, the leader in building a strong financial institution, and the benchmark bank for its main business. Liao Lin said.
The night before the press conference, ICBC released its 2023 annual report. According to the annual report, in 2023, ICBC will achieve an operating income of 843.07 billion yuan and a net profit of 365.116 billion yuan, an increase of 0.8% over the previous year. As of the end of 2023, the Group's total assets reached RMB44.7 trillion, an increase of 12.8% over the previous year.
Based on the good performance, the board of directors of ICBC recommended the payment of a cash dividend of RMB 3.064 (tax included) for every 10 ordinary shares in 2023, with a total dividend of approximately RMB 109.203 billion.
First, short-term challenges do not change the long-term positive trend
As for how to deal with the complex and severe challenges of the economic and financial environment at home and abroad, Liao Lin emphasized that there are challenges every year, and if they are dealt with well, they will be new opportunities, and if they are solved, they will make new breakthroughs.
"ICBC has gone through 40 years, and in the past 40 years, it has been continuously achieving wave-like development in the face of challenges and solving problems. Liao Lin believes that short-term challenges do not change the long-term positive trend, and ICBC has many advantages and strong foundations to maintain high-quality development.
Liao Lin further said that from an external point of view, China's economy is resilient, full of potential and full of vitality, and the upward trend continues to consolidate and strengthen. Among them, the "macro four corners" that support the economic market, such as GDP, CPI, employment rate, and foreign exchange reserves, are running smoothly, and the "four economic volumes" such as capital volume, electricity consumption, passenger flow, and freight volume continue to grow, creating a broad space for financial development. This is their greatest confidence to meet the challenge.
"Recently, I have met many old and new friends from the international business and financial circles in Beijing, and they are all generally optimistic about China's economy and finance. We are full of confidence in China's economy, in the high-quality development of large banks including ICBC, and in coping with the challenges they face, and we have the ability to climb the slope and start a new situation. Liao Lin emphasized.
Liao Lin believes that at present, ICBC's main business scale ranks first in the world, with obvious advantages in manufacturing finance, science and technology finance, green finance, etc., industry-leading technological innovation and risk control capabilities, and "resilience indicators" such as capital adequacy ratio, provision coverage ratio, and dividend yield are at the best level in the industry. In particular, the four business pillars of corporate finance, institutional finance, personal finance and financial market have formed a trend of mutual advancement and mutual promotion, with digital momentum emerging and new quality productivity ready to develop, which is a solid foundation for them to promote high-quality development.
2. Support the reasonable financing needs of real estate enterprises under different ownership systems without discrimination
In 2023, the main "physical examination indicators" of ICBC's asset quality will be stable and improving, and will be in a healthy range, and the risk resilience will be further enhanced. As of the end of 2023, the non-performing loan ratio was 1.36%, down 0.02 percentage points from the previous year, and the scissors gap between overdue and non-performing loans remained negative for 15 consecutive quarters. The provision coverage ratio was 213.97%, an increase of 4.5 percentage points year-on-year.
Wang Jingwu, vice president of the bank, said that ICBC takes the "five accounts" as the starting point, strengthens comprehensive risk management, and strives to improve the risk control ability of civil air defense + technical defense, so as to achieve precise risk prevention and control.
Regarding the risk prevention and control issues in the three key areas that the market is more concerned about, Wang Jingwu pointed out that ICBC will conscientiously implement the state's decision-making and deployment on preventing and resolving risks in key areas, and resolutely adhere to the bottom line of no systemic risks.
According to reports, in the field of real estate, ICBC adheres to the trinity of regional, customer and project asset selection criteria, and implements comprehensive policies from the four aspects of "increasing prevention and chemical governance", and strives to build a dispersed, diversified and balanced real estate investment and financing structure. Adhere to the good investment direction, optimize the increment, fully support the stable and healthy development of the market, support the reasonable financing needs of real estate enterprises of different ownership without discrimination, actively serve the construction of the "three major projects", and promote the construction of a new model of real estate development. Adhere to the management of stocks, precise risk management, increase the disposal and clearance of risky real estate enterprises and projects, and ensure that the quality of assets is stable and controllable.
In addition, in the field of local debt, ICBC's financing is mainly invested in areas with better economic and financial strength and reasonable debt levels, and customers and projects with sufficient cash flow are preferred, and the credit risk in the field of local debt is generally controllable. In the field of small and medium-sized financial institutions, ICBC has established and implemented a full-process and full-cycle customer management mechanism to control the risks of cooperation with small and medium-sized financial institutions.
3. Loans and bond investment will continue to be more intensive
According to reports, in 2023, ICBC will provide a total of nearly 5 trillion yuan of full-caliber financing to the real economy through diversified financial services such as loans, bond investment, and equity investment on and off the balance sheet, of which the increase in domestic RMB loans and bond investment will reach 2.91 trillion yuan and 1.28 trillion yuan respectively, both hitting new highs.
Regarding this year's investment and financing arrangements, Vice President Wang Jingwu said that taking into account the needs of the real economy, the guidance of monetary policy and the actual operation of the whole bank, ICBC will continue to maintain a relatively large investment in loans and bonds this year, and give full play to the role of large state-owned banks as the main force serving the real economy. At the same time, we will adhere to the "three-pronged approach" of revitalizing stocks, making good use of increments, and improving efficiency, so as to help and consolidate the momentum of economic recovery.
"In terms of total volume, the balance of our RMB loans and bond investments was 24.4 trillion yuan and 10.1 trillion yuan respectively at the end of 2023, and will maintain steady and reasonable growth on this basis this year. Wang Jingwu said that in terms of increment, ICBC will maintain the same strength as last year. In terms of stock, ICBC will make every effort to improve the efficiency of revitalizing inefficient stock loans by shifting the stock and re-lending the stock and carrying out asset securitization in a timely manner.
In addition, Wang Jingwu mentioned that the development of new quality productivity is an inherent requirement and an important focus for promoting high-quality development, and it is also a new driving force and a blue ocean for ICBC's growth. Recently, ICBC has taken the lead in establishing the Science and Technology Finance Center of the Head Office, the Digital Inclusion Center, and the leading group of the "Five Major Articles" service.
Fourth, deepen global operations and support Chinese-funded enterprises to go global
According to reports, ICBC has established 413 overseas institutions in 49 countries and regions, 259 branches in 30 countries along the "Belt and Road", and indirectly covered 20 African countries through its shareholding in Standard Bank, and the number of overseas RMB clearing banks has increased to 11.
In terms of stabilizing foreign trade and foreign investment, in 2023, ICBC issued on-balance sheet and off-balance sheet financing to key foreign trade and foreign-funded enterprises in China by more than 1.1 trillion yuan, handled cross-border e-commerce payment business of more than 200 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 48%, and led the underwriting of panda bonds by more than 73% year-on-year.
"At present, the international situation is relatively complex, and anti-globalization is on the rise. But overall, there are still a lot of opportunities in terms of opportunities. Vice President Zhang Weiwu said that in terms of internationalization, in the next step, ICBC will focus on helping to accelerate the construction of a new development pattern, deepen global operations, and strengthen risk management.
Zhang Weiwu also mentioned that ICBC will do a good job in supporting the stabilization of foreign investment and foreign trade, give full play to the advantages of the integration of domestic and foreign currencies, and make every effort to do a good job in the "five major articles" to support Chinese-funded enterprises to go global. In the near future, it is preparing to release a service plan for the integration of domestic and foreign trade, and continuously improve the new cross-border financial service system of "onshore-cross-border-offshore".
Fifth, the personal financial assets exceeded 20 trillion yuan, and more measures were taken to build a payment environment
Since last year, ICBC has further promoted the implementation of the first personal financial banking strategy, and has achieved good results in the operation of personal financial business.
According to reports, at the end of 2023, ICBC's personal financial assets took the lead in breaking through the 20 trillion yuan mark, an increase of 2.1 trillion yuan from the beginning of the year, and the balance and increment maintained the leading position in the industry. The number of individual customers increased by nearly 20 million, and the net increase has remained the leading position in the industry for many years. The number of young Gen Z customers exceeded 100 million, an increase of more than 1 percentage point in the bank's total customers, with 552 million mobile banking customers and 113 million credit card customers.
Yao Mingde, the newly appointed vice president, introduced at the performance meeting that ICBC attaches great importance to the financial services of new citizens, and helps 150 million new citizens better integrate into urban life by optimizing service supply and innovating service scenarios. For example, in terms of housing consumption, we will implement differentiated housing credit policies, and increase support for housing loans for newly settled individuals through measures such as implementing the best loan interest rate, giving priority to approval and first disbursement, and flexibly determining the income of new citizens.
When talking about the issue of payment facilitation, Yao Mingde said that in 2024, ICBC will make efforts in many fields to build a payment environment and help facilitate payment.
First, we will continue to build a safe, convenient and warm "ICBC Love Accompaniment" service brand to improve the ability of payment services for the elderly. The second is to expand the coverage of POS foreign card acceptance, focusing on the needs of food, housing, transportation, travel, shopping, entertainment, and medical journeys, and do a good job in expanding new merchants and upgrading existing merchants, so as to form a payment service environment covering online and offline. The third is to continue to protect ATM foreign card cash withdrawal services and coin wallet services, and explore more outlets to provide foreign card cash withdrawals. The fourth is to build "Qianyou" service outlets for foreign exchange business, and embed ICBC payment services in airports and ports.
In addition, for the promotion of the "five major articles", Vice President Duan Hongtao introduced that after the central financial work conference, ICBC set up a leading group to serve the "five major articles" to optimize the business promotion mechanism and improve the systematic layout.
"At present, ICBC's 'five major articles' are changing from ramming the foundation and pillars and beams to comprehensively penetrating and integrating. Duan Hongtao said that ICBC will focus on doing a good job in the "five major articles", further optimize the scientific and technological financial service system, enhance the ability of green financial services, promote the quality and efficiency of inclusive finance, accelerate the pace of development of pension finance, promote the healthy development of digital finance, continuously improve the allocation efficiency of financial resources, and firmly take the road of financial development with Chinese characteristics.
Editor: Captain
Review: Xu Wen