China Construction Bank Corporation Class H Aktie

Distinguished investors, analysts, media friends ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Welcome all of you to China Construction Bank's 2025 Annual Results Announcement. Thank you very much for your trust, care and support to CCB over the years. This announcement has two venues in Beijing and Hong Kong. We were connected by video. And we will also broadcast to the shareholders and public through the online platform.

Present in Beijing include President of CCB, Mr. Zhang Yi. Mr. Li Jianjiang, Vice President. Those in Hong Kong venue include Mr. Ji Zhihong, VP; Mr. Lei Ming, VP; and CFO, Mr. Sheng Liurong. Those present also include the non-executive directors, independent director representatives, the heads of departments of head office and Hong Kong institutions, et cetera. I am VP, Tang Shuo.

The 2025 annual results of CCB is already made public today. The PowerPoint is also released on our official website for your reference and reading. The announcement will begin by the speech made by President Zhang, then we will have the Q&A session.

Now Mr. Zhang, please.

Distinguished investors, analysts, media friends, welcome all of you to CCB's 2025 annual results announcement. 2025 is concluding year of 14th five-year plan and also the 20th anniversary of CCB's IPO. In the past 20 years, we have been developing with the national development, the capital market, and we use reform to generate new growth, providing stable and long-term values for our shareholders and also the public. Here on behalf of CCB to all the shareholders, to our clients and to the general public, we'd like to thank you all for your support and trust.

Today, we have reviewed and approved the 2025 annual results and made them public. Now I would like to report to you the financial performance, development and the future outlook. In 2025, we stick to Mr. [ Shi's ] philosophy, and we have implemented the -- all the principles in the central government meetings and we have also coordinated and promoted the quality development and quantitative development of -- our overall development. And we have achieved steady developments. The core indicators have all recorded new growth. In terms of asset structure, it continued to optimize. The 5 priorities, manufacturing and infrastructure, loan disbursement has also recorded more than average growth. And we have also recorded a net profit increase of 1.04% at CNY 339 billion, and operating income is also increased by 1.69% YoY. Profit before provisions also increased by 1.7% Y-o-Y. All the indicators have a steady growth. NIM is 1.34%, ROA 0.79%, ROE 10.04% and Capital adequacy ratio 19.69%. Cost-to-income ratio 29.44%. Net interest -- net income ratio is 22.69%. They are all leading in the market. In terms of risk control, it is steady. And the NPL ratio is only 1.31% and we continue to enhance our capacity. The provision coverage ratio is 233.15%.

So based on these quality and quantity development, our capital is also -- asset is also recording -- is also recording growth steadily. Our total assets increased to CNY 45.63 trillion by 12%. Gross loans to customers also increased by 7.47% to CNY 27.77 trillion. Financial investments also increased by 12.9 -- 20% to [ CNY 12.9 trillion ] The liabilities also increased to CNY 41.65 trillion by 12%. The debt deposits also increased by 7%. Our loan continue to support the real economy, and we are also serving the public and the society support the economy to go smoothly.

Based on the annual results, in 2025, we have also sent -- dispatched a total dividend of CNY 106 billion. And we will also have interim dividend for first half of RMB 1.858 per 10 shares. The final dividend for the whole year is RMB 2 per 10 shares, and we continue to enhance our capital capacity. Over the year, we stick to the inherent high-quality development, and we have done the following things. First, we focus on core responsibilities on the primary business to empower the real economy, we have advanced the 5 priorities with scale and quality.

We have the technology, digital, green and inclusive and pension finance. So technology finance, the loans are over RMB 5 trillion, and we have underwriting of sci-tech innovation bonds amounted to RMB 72 billion. In terms of green finance, we issued RMB 6 trillion, up by 20.54%. Green bonds, leasing, investment and funds continue to boom. The MSCI rating maintained at AAA level. In terms of inclusive finance, the loan customers reached 3.69 million. The finance loan balance reached RMB 3.83 trillion. Agriculture-related loans balance reached RMB 3.71 trillion. In terms of pension finance, we actively expanded the application scenarios. There is a solid growth in enterprise and personal pension business. The Pillar 2 or AUM management also grew by 15%. Digital Finance also accelerated. Mobile banking and the CCB lifestyle app users reached 546 million. We developed the home living and auto living service platforms. We also provided a lot of digital economy, advance to core business and the digital economy. It also grew by 18.7% to RMB 891 billion we have multiple channel expansion of credit resources facilitating the domestic and international dual circulation, we actively supported efforts to boost consumption, stabilize the market and expand investment. The personal consumption loans grew 29.41%. Balance is at RMB 6.72 trillion in terms of loan balance to private economy, up by 12%. And the loan balance to manufacturing sector reached RMB 3.52 trillion. Digital supply chain financing provided RMB 1.32 trillion. We also support balanced regional developments such as Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Greater Bay Area, and Chengdu-Chongqing area. The loans and deposits also outpaced the bank-wide average. We also continue to strengthen financial service for key areas. We continue to coordinate the cross-border loans and investment and also the -- the loan balance to the project cross-border M&A and also the loan balance to Belt and Road partner countries also reached RMB 55 billion.

We also uphold people-centric finance and enhanced group-wide integrated service. We try to accelerate the transition from a product-driven approach to client-centric mindset. We advanced commercial and banking, investment banking and integration. Underwriting of nonfinancial corporate bonds increased by 85%. M&A loan balance increased by 24%. New equity investment scale also increase -- is 20% higher than -- over the period. We also advanced corporate and retail banking integration. We deepen the ecosystem-based operation of payroll disbursement and social security card service, continue to upgrade and promote the Xinxiaotong payroll service, development of social security card Ecosystem. So that we can connect the corporate and retail banking. We also advanced the domestic and foreign currency operation integration. The international business loan balance is CNY 1.5 trillion, cross-border RMB settlement reached RMB 6.5 trillion. With advanced group-wide integration -- the overseas institutions recorded net profit of RMB 12 billion. The integrated operations subsidiaries recorded net profit of RMB 9.45 billion, up by 31% and 7% Y-o-Y, respectively. We also explored ecosystem plus industry and supply chain plus industry and business clusters service model. We developed 12 enterprise-level models across ecosystem, supported by integrated service throughout the customer journey. And we continue to enhance our customer base. And we also have 785 million customers. So we also recorded double-digit growth.

And for the personal CTS customers, it exceeded 100 million. Assets under custody is CNY 27 trillion. And thirdly, we adopted a systematic approach and strengthened risk and compliance management. With solid foundation for comprehensive risk management, improved 3 lines of defense risk, governance, framework. We optimized the integrated financing management systems and enhanced comprehensive risk panorama. We also strengthened the penetrative risk management across overseas institutions and subsidiaries. We also try to accelerate the upgrading of risk control systems. We also try to look at the management of emerging risks, including model risks, data risks, fraud risks and new product risks. We also try to optimize risk-related processes. The NPL ratio is only 1.31% decreased by 0.03 percentage points. The SML ratio also stands at 1.77%, also decreased on a Y-o-Y basis from the last year. We also strengthened development foundations and continued upgrade operation and management systems.

We promoted the development of operation, data and technology. We promoted AI application in business system. We also emphasized on various risks in terms of the model risks, data and fraud risks. We also continue to enhance internal control, strengthen employee conduct management, case prevention control, anti-money laundering, et cetera. We further enhanced the consumer rights protection framework. So the foundation is more solid. Fourthly, we strengthened development foundation and continued to upgrade the operation and management system, promote the integrated development of operation data and technology. And we also enhanced the foundation. We have a transformation from a centralized core business system to distributed model.

The cloud computing scale increased by 12%. We also have the AI plus technology and framework. Large-scale modeling technology has been applied for 398 application scenarios within the group. We enhanced enterprise-level large-scale operations in many key areas such as tech development, building a more comprehensive cloud system, including an omnichannel optimization mechanism to provide customers with one-stop services, which enhance the efficiency of key operations to enrich an online processing scenario and enhance the automated capabilities of our centralized operations to better serve corporations and the public. In the future, we're going to continue to work in line with the 15th Five-Year plan to find our proper positioning to continue to promote further upgrade and development, continuing to support a new qualitative and high-quality development. In terms of business layout, financing method, customer structure, room for development and server model, these 5 aspects, we're going to consolidate and expand traditional strengths and tap into the potential for high-quality development. In 2026, we're going to do 4 major things. We will continue to serve the national strategy.

We're going to do the 5 priorities of finance business. We are going to anchor ourselves as a leading financial institution of China to continue to enhance our professionalism and comprehensiveness and the integration of our business to strengthen our sustainable business model to continue to support domestic demand to follow up on consumption stimulus policies to offer consumer financial services to have a comprehensive solution covering credit payments, merchant services and value-added offerings to continue to unleash the growth potential of consumer financing to seize opportunities to further expand effective investment to fully expand financial services for infrastructure projects across land, sea, air, digital roads, network bridges and waterways to continue to strengthen our unique advantages here and to accelerate key project progress, we focus on key areas such as ultra-long-term special government bonds, local government special bonds and new policy-based financial instruments to support the binary star and the 2 focuses to support regional banking coordination upgrade and enhancement to support the Hainan Free Trade Port and offshore renminbi market development.

We're going to enhance county-level financial services based and help urban rural development and regional coordination and to enhance our financial services based on local conditions. We are going to continue and commit to advancing high-quality development. Customer operation is all about maintaining a strong focus on enhancing service capabilities. Our asset business focuses both on scale, pricing and risk to maintain a balance among the 3. Our liability business, we're going to maintain a dynamic alignment across scale, pricing and quality. We're going to consolidate our base. And our intermediary business is about maintaining category-specific policies across intelligence, technology, equity and debt financing to enhance our value creation capabilities. Cost management, we will maintain an alignment between cost reduction and efficiency enhancement to dynamically support our growth of our business and to maintain high efficiency.

We're going to continue to commit to upgrading our integrated service model. Depending on our customer needs as they change, we're going to continue to invest in -- investment in commercial bank integration, domestic and foreign currency integration, group-wide integration and corporate and retail banking integration across institutions, across sectors and across markets, we will upgrade and refine the service models across ecosystems, industrial and supply chains and industrial and business clusters. We're going to upgrade and deep integration -- deliver personalized services tailored to individual custom needs across the entire life cycle, we are going to optimize our services, achieving a tailor-made service depending on the customer you are. We further deepened integration under the Binary Stars model. We will have a more product -- in-dev -- product matrix and accompanying purposes to rejuvenate the financial system.

We're going to committed to safeguard the bottom line of risk control. We are going to remember the key of risk management and continue to advance a comprehensive, proactive, intelligent and agile risk control system to improve the working mechanism of the 3 lines of defense to further strengthen the joint risk management between bank and subsidiaries and enhance the look-through management of overseas institutions. We are going to further adopt a more dynamic loan control mechanism. We're going to roll out inclusive loans and continue to assess regional risks. We are going to hold true fast to the bottom line of risk control in order to assess risk in advance and increase our resolution capabilities. We're going to enhance enterprise-wide anti-fraud capabilities as well. We're going to continue to build a better consumer protection system to protect the deep -- promote the deep integration across the entire business process. In 2026, we are going to continue with the political and fundamental nature of our business.

We are going to continue to keep our eye on risk on the business development to continue to serve the development of our nation to prevent financial risk and enhance our international competitiveness. We will have higher commitment, more measures to play the role that we should play in the development of our nation's history to show our value, to work with all partners to open up a new chapter of high-quality development.

Thank you. Thank you, President Zhang. Now we go into Q&A. So this event will have questions alternatively from both the Beijing and Hong Kong venues so that everybody gets a chance to ask question.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the Beijing venue. May I invite the lady on the left on the third row, please.

I am from CCTV. [indiscernible]. So in 2025, you have achieved a stable and fantastic results. Congratulations. In terms of profit growth, we see that there's a positive recovery trend as well. May I ask what's the core drivers behind this good performance in 2025? And what's the outlook for our operations in 2026?

May I invite our President to answer that question.

Thank you. Thank you, Madam [ Wu, ] for that question. In 2025, the CCB's business has continued its steady progress. I should say that the high-quality development has achieved certain results. Our steady foundations are getting better and better. Our total assets have surpassed CNY 54 trillion. Our net profit is CNY 339-plus billion, 1.04% growth. Our profit attributable has grown by 0.99% as well. Our operational revenue has also grown by 1.69% and 1.7%, respectively, profit before provisions. These are the key metrics. In terms of the trend, ever since Q2, our operational income has continued to grow. Our annual profit growth continues to be healthy. The development quality continues to grow and improve. A lot of our assets have been optimized and improved in quality. Amongst our loan to key sectors under the 5 priorities has continued to go up. Our ROA, ROE, our NIM, our capital adequacy ratio, our cost-to-income ratio and noninterest net income ratio, all are very balanced. We continue to lead the pack amongst our peers.

Our income structure continued to be more diverse, 22.69% noninterest net income ratio, which is a year-on-year increase of 3.65%. Our subsidiary contribution from overseas continued to increase. These 2 entities have gone up by 0.98% in terms of their net profit. I would say I attribute our success to the following 5 reasons. Firstly, we are able to stabilize the basic NIM structure and the decline has continued to narrow. In terms of quantity, we have a 9.38%, which is a 1.38% acceleration, primarily because our core asset growth have been faster. The average liability balance net is at 89.13%, which is a year-on-year increase of 0.66%. In terms of price, we continue to lead the pack in terms of our profit.

The decline has decreased by 2 basis points year-on-year, 1.32%, which is a 33 basis point decline in our liabilities for savings, which is a very good foundation for us to continue to improve our business. In terms of the structure, we have increased our investment into mid- to long-term quality efforts. And among nondiscount loans for 1-year plus loans of duration has increased by 0.8%. We continue to consolidate our traditional advantages in this space. Personal consumption loans, personal business loans have achieved double-digit growth for 3 consecutive years. We continue to accelerate to settlement of a low-cost financing. Domestic loans is at 24.34% by proportion, which is still a very good level compared with our peers. Secondly, we offer more in-depth comprehensive services. Noninterest income continued to grow. We continue to create value through service to achieve a win-win situation with our clients.

5.13% growth in the noninterest income front. So we consolidate traditional interest-based income. But on the other hand, we continue to improve our services capabilities, wealth management, asset management and the revenue from all these areas continue to grow steadily, amongst which our wealth management products growth has been faster, more than 25% growth for funds, which we sell and for wealth management is more than 90% growth year-on-year. This is all like higher growth compared with our administrative fees, which is a net growth. We continue to assess the market to improve our investment strategy. Equity-based investments and relevant income revenue has grown by more than 40%. Thirdly, we continue to manage our costs. Fee controls has been working. Our cost ratio is 92.44%, which is a 14 basis point improvement, continued to be a very healthy level, amongst which operational fee increased by [ 1.5%, ] which is lower than our operational income growth. Structurally speaking, we continue to manage our operational costs. We are going to increase our input into key businesses, accelerate digital transformations. Fintech is 3. 61%, which is 0.26% growth of overall in good.

We are going to continue to improve our asset management and risk management. Our asset maintains healthy. NPL is 1.31%, which is a year-on-year decline of 0.33%. Our risk management capability is quite adequate. Provision coverage ratio is 233.15%, which is basically flat year-on-year. We consolidate our customer base, enhancing our overall service capabilities. In terms of quantity, we have expanded our scope of coverage for our clients. For corporate clients, 12 million plus, which is an increase of 1.05 million different clients. Our different unit core clients have also increased by more than 10%, which is both 9.9% growth year-on-year, which is 1% faster growth compared with last year. Personal customers have surpassed 785 million customers. Our number of wealth management clients and private banking clients have both achieved more than 10% growth. Our CTS customers, the total assets has grown assets under custody have increased to more than 27 billion, which is a high 20-something percent double-digit growth.

Our product coverage, our client activity are all looking good. And CTS, our personal customers have achieved double-digit growth. 2025 is the starting year -- 2025 is the starting year of the next 5-year plan period. We are going to continue to work with the government to build a better life for our people, our nation. We are confident and capable that we can achieve long-term sustainable and resilient business performance. We're going to continue to leverage our traditional strengths in liability management business and to in-depth find more service value propositions amongst our clients.

We would have an effective growth of our quality development and a reasonable amount of quantitative development. Thanks to our traditional base, we are able to continue to work on our 5 key priorities. We want to be one of the leading banks in Fintech. There are several consumption stimulus policies to optimize the product supply out there in the market to enhance our international competitiveness to approve of our quality loans.

We were going to develop our service capabilities to better integrate the rural city areas development to continue to build both corporate and commercial bank, domestic and foreign integration and room for development in our customers' development. We're going to empower our business development through finance. In terms of asset liability, we enhance our liabilities greatly to enhance our core loan business to more settlement management and wealth management type of funding, which can effectively help manage our costs. On customer service side, we are going to have a more tier-based approach in customer service to upgrade our customer service model. We use different models to offer a better comprehensive and optimized financial services solution for our customers. And we are going to continue to manage costs and increase efficiency to increase pricing management mechanism to restrict the low-yield assets to further stabilize our overall business.

So that the new momentum can be created. We will also optimize our services and increase their quality. And we will also enhance our stability management continues to enhance linear management. Based on the solid development, we should explore more room for linear management so that the cost effectiveness will be improved. Thirdly, we will have to have a preemptive management and get more quality risk control assisted by AI, improve the comprehensive, proactive and intelligent management system so that we can more actively respond to the risks. We have to stick to the three guarding lines, also enhance the management of the NPL.

Thank you. That's all.

Thank you, Mr. Zhang. Now I would like to invite questions from Hong Kong. The lady -- on the left, the third row.

My question is about loan. We see that in 2025, it has a very steady growth to about 7%. Just spoken, this is the opening year of the 15th five-year plan. So what is the new arrangement compared with 2024 in terms of regional dispatchment and the sectors, how different would it be?

I would like to invite Mr. Zhang to answer the questions.

Thank you, Mr. Lei, for your question. Your first question is about the loan disbursement sectors. In 2025, CCB stick to the real economy service, and we also stick to the strategy of quantity and pricing balance. We also continue to expand our customers and markets, and we also look at the pipeline of the key projects. The loan growth is steady and enjoy high quality. In terms of quantity, we enhanced our capacity to support the real economy. We have 2 highs and 2 advancement. The 2 highs include the growth of 7.47%, up by 1 percentage points than the average of the industry. The second high is the domestic loan is 8% in terms of growth, it is also higher than the CCB average. It also supported the real economy. What is -- what are the 2 advancements?

First, in terms of the residential loan and the retail consumption loan, the disbursement are also leading in the industry. In terms of the retail consumption and also the advancement of some structural arrangement, we continue to support the mandatory needs for residential improvement of the customers. So in terms of residential finance and retail finance, we maintain our competitiveness in -- compared with our peers. We continue to improve the quality, and we have 2 elevation in the key areas and key regions. The loans percentage continue to increase. In 2025, CCB also has the 5 priorities and all the key area and the 5 priorities have recorded double-digit growth. In terms of technology loan, it also exceeded CNY 5 trillion and increased by [ 89%, ] supporting the high-tech company. And also the green finance also increased by CNY 6 trillion. And the inclusive finance also stands at 3.69 million.

We continue to expand our customer base. In terms of pension finance and digital finance, it reached 53 million and is up by 15% and 18%, respectively. We also continue to enhance the manufacturing infrastructure. So the loans to these key sectors have also recorded double-digit growth. And in some key regions like Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, GBA, Chengdu-Chongqing also has maintained a very steady growth.

It's also higher than the average. The Retail finance continued to show its competitiveness. The domestic loans also exceeded CNY 9 trillion, and it also takes up 32% of the total loans. Compared with our peers, we also maintain a leading role. This is a solid support for our steady development. In terms of the total arrangement for 2026, this is the opening year of the 15th Five-Year plan.

So we will try to guarantee a steady growth. In terms of structure, it will be driven by the domestic need. Also, we need to nurture the new quality development. The macro policy is more proactive, and we will support the industry upgrading, the internal needs satisfaction and the internal social welfare services. All these sectors have provided good opportunity for our banks. So we will stick to the strategic goals, guarantee the steady volume and also will be structure oriented. We will respond to the needs and improve the high-quality development of loans disbursement. And we will guarantee steady total volume. We will guarantee a reasonable growth of the total scale. For the new increment of 2026, it will maintain very steady as compared with the previous years. And in terms of the rhythm, we will also get a little bit more energetic, and we will have 2 anchorings. First to the corporate loans.

We will support the modern industrial clusters and systems, realize the new quality development, support the emerging and strategic sectors, especially the high-technology sectors, and we will also continue to dig out the investment needs centering around the 5 priorities and manufacturing and key infrastructures. We will also echo the objectives of 109 items in the 15th 5-year plan in terms of the local government dedicated loans and some new emerging markets loans, we will also provide our support so that we can support the industry transformation. And we will also support the domestic demand consumption and its growth. We will also execute some dedicated projects and make full use of the fiscal policy, support the EV, automobile, the electronic devices and digital devices, consumption and travel, tourism, catering and the hospitality services so that the clients' experience will be elevated.

We will also guarantee the demand of the service industry. And for the property markets, we will also be prudent, support the commercial residential buildings, support the social welfare system reform and enhance our competitiveness in the real estate sector loans. Through these measures, we will also through our efforts, we will continue to maintain our edge in terms of the retail consumption loans.

Thank you, Mr. Zhang. Now I would like to invite a question from Beijing. The lady.

I'm from CICC. I'm Shuaishuai. We noticed that in 2025, the decline of NIMs continued to show very steady momentum. So can you introduce the NIM influences in terms of supply and demand side? And also, what is your outlook for NIM in 2026.

Now I would like to invite our CFO, Mr. Sheng Liurong, to answer the questions.

Thank you Ms. Shuaishuai for your question.

Your question has 2 aspects. In 2025, performance and 2026 outlook of NIM. In 2025, the NIM is 1.34% as reported by Mr. Zhang. Vertically, we can see that in 2025, the NIM narrowed by 2 pp. And in terms of the changes in the 4 quarters, the spread continued to narrow. Horizontally, we compare with our peers. Our NIM is also maintaining a leading position. So the -- also -- have reached a balance in terms of the quantity price and the spread. So for the 2026, three factors will influence the NIM. First, the savings deposits has repricing, and we have completed the repricing. So the loan pressure has been alleviated. Secondly, for the interest rate, for the high interest savings deposits, and it will all -- most of them will be mature. So the interest pressure will be lower. Thanks to -- in 2024, the bank industry has executed a good mechanism. So we have attributed our growth to that aspect. So it has kind of buffered the loan interest influence to NIM.

Thirdly, through very proactive management and structure optimization, we have also decreased the loan interest buffered the negative result of the loan interest decline. And through the management optimization and through cash management and also some payroll services, so we can make better use of our custody capital. So you asked to analyze from the assets and the liability side. In terms of asset side, we continue to improve the quality of investment, mainly the bond investment. So the percentage has been increased. President Zhang also mentioned that our interest capital also increased -- recorded increase. So for the -- some financial investments, its percentage also increased by 1.6%.

So it helps the asset side. And through structural optimization, the negative impact has been offset. In terms of liabilities, so through differentiated layer management, we also reduced some high interest rate savings. And we also have expanded some peer savings so that the high interest savings impact will be reduced. So it also helped to narrow the spread of NIM. For 2026 outlook, we can also -- we can also look through the macro and micro levels. In quarter 4 of 2025, the banking report also mentioned that we need to enhance the system and also strengthen our monitoring, reduce the liability cost of the banks.

In other words, in terms of macro policy, the PBOC on the one hand, pays attention to the market orientation of the interest rates. They also pay attention to the reasonable costs for bank operations. I think that macro trend is quite obvious. From a micro perspective, through improved liability management, active debt management, which is very effective to optimize our asset liability structure to enhance our multi-tiered customer pricing mechanism from the asset side and the liability side, we expect to be able to do more. We believe through our active debt management, we can continue to enhance our quality and efficiency in our operations. Therefore, we are confident, the NIM decline could continue to slow down, and we are confident that our NIM would still compare -- favorably compared with our peers in the future.

Thank you. Thank you to our CFO, Mr. Sheng. Next question comes from the Hong Kong venue. The gentleman on the left from the fourth row, please.

I am Yang Shuo, Goldman Sachs. So you just mentioned that you did pretty well in terms of your asset returns, right? What about bonds? Because in 2025, the scale and yield of your bonds were all very good. What's the highlight of your bond investment philosophy? And secondly, outlook in 2026. In terms of asset allocation strategy and investment returns outlook, can you comment on that, please?

So may I ask Executive VP, Ji Zhihong from Hong Kong venue to answer that question.

Thank you. Thank you for that question, and thank you for paying attention to our performance. So as aforementioned by my colleagues in terms of our CCB investment, actually, both our CFO and our President has mentioned how we have increased our efforts in terms of asset allocation. That way, our books are more resilient. That's a very important factor. I'd like to say 3 things. There's like broader trends in changes in social financing and social lending. And in reference in this new environment, we are going to double down on our efforts of asset allocation. So corporate loans for the first time has surpassed other forms of loans. We are going to continue to support this active financial policy -- active fiscal policy. Government investments is CNY 12.8 trillion annually last year, which is leading the way out there in the market. And secondly, we will comprehensively satisfy domestic and foreign direct lending needs from our clients. The financial loan growth is quite rapid, like green loans, pension loans and tech loans. These are all actively growing area. We continue to participate in Panda-led debt, Panda loans, offshore renminbi markets is continued strengthening, which is in alignment with our overall capability to serve the development of the real economy.

And secondly, we have enhanced active management. That's another thing. In lieu of a complicated market environment, and we have increased our forward-looking aspects of our asset allocation. Right now, our bonds have surpassed CNY 12 trillion in terms of size, which is quite substantial. In order to properly management in terms of our investment strategy, we are more active and nimble. We want to seize opportunities out there in the market. We are able to make much more good use of existing capacity. And we have improved integration of domestic and foreign currency. We have many ways of asset allocation to optimize asset structure to increase the profitability and stability of our assets. Thirdly, we are actively participating in the bond trading market to increase our customer service capability. We, of course, are a big bank, and we actively perform our obligations out there in the market to continue to expand our circle of friends in our trading, which is 127% increase in our size of our circle, more than 50% increased distribution.

And at the same time, through satisfying SMEs and the investment needs of various types of clients, the annual transaction volume has surpassed RMB 100 billion. The centralized settlement business is also a key business of us, which achieved new breakthrough. When foreign investors want to come to China and invest in China, we provide a brand-new, more convenient channel for them to invest in renminbi-denominated assets, and we are developing that. And we also provide a fixed income and other FICC types of services in order to satisfy the various needs of our clients. On your second question, market uncertainty is still quite high at the moment, I'd say, particularly geopolitical factors have impacted the financial market somewhat. What we need to pay attention is how much will the rising energy cost change the risk appetite and expectations of the market at large. Right now, overall, domestic liquidity is very stable. External market, the volatility out there in the foreign markets are actually greater.

Of course, the foreign and domestic market are linked, and we have seen different risk profiles for some types of traditional assets. And in that environment, we are going to continue to maintain our stable, steady value-oriented investment principle. We are going to continue to make sure to tune our strategies appropriately to respond to the market conditions and strike a good balance. So those are the 3 major areas that we are going to work on. The 3 areas are active adapting to changes in daily needs of our clients, including value creation and customer service. And secondly, we know that the yen market, the renminbi market and the opening up of the renminbi market is vast and rapid. Offshore issuance of Dim Sum bonds is very convenient, very convenient these days. And domestically, we also issue permanent perennial debts to continue -- we're going to continue to optimize the coordination of -- across domestic and foreign markets across domestic and foreign currencies. As a flagship institution, right, Hong Kong trading with is Hong Kong, of course, in M&M Asian financial hub, trading is very active here as well. We do recommend international players to actively participate in trading in the Hong Kong markets. Fixed income asset class has shown very positive development trends.

As the yen market and renminbi market continues to expand here in Hong Kong, we have a lot of opportunities. Furthermore, we continue to emphasize on multi-strategy adoption, more active management in order to make sure that the full group in terms of operational management, we are able to do more innovation amidst this volatile environment. The key thing is that we have to have adaptability in face of the markets and clients, particularly managing significant volatility risks. The CCB has to play various roles in this regard. We are a service provider, we are a bank, et cetera. We have to better leverage our foreign and domestic and foreign and domestic currency integration advantages. And Mr. Zhang has brought this up just now.

The targetedness, the diversity and the efficacy of our operational strategies will continue to be enhanced, in particular, our execution must be enhanced to make sure our investments work out. And furthermore, we are going to increase investment into our tech empowerment to build a smart ecosystem. Right now, digitalization has many applications in financial trading, things are developing rapidly, and the CCB is going to continue to invest in developing such capabilities, iterating and evolving our systems, upgrading our systems to make sure that finance and bond investments can continue to develop in a high-quality manner. Thank you very much.

Next question comes from the Beijing venue. The gentlemen on the fifth row on the left, please.

Thank you for this opportunity. I am [indiscernible] from CIS. So my question is as follows. The external environment is very complicated and our country's economic development is facing a structural change as well. But despite that background, in 2025, your NPL ratio has continued steady decline. Your asset scale is also steady. So may I ask what measures have you adopted in terms of risk management? And with respect to future risk assessment, what do you think? Especially in key core areas such as consumer loans.

This question will be addressed by Mr. Li Jianjiang.

Thank you. Thank you for your question. 2025 is the last year of the 14th 5-year period. And we, at the CCB continue to implement the strategies by the central government at the State Economic Reform Council. We're going to continue to focus on resolving and preventing risks as the first priority of our bank. So you have already -- Mr. Zhang has really cited a lot of relevant data up till last year, which is -- NPL ratio is 1.31 ratio, which is 0.03% decline year-on-year, 1.7%, [ 12 bp ] decline of such loans. As you've seen, right, we have improved on these metrics. And at the same time, our risk management capacity is adequate. Our provision coverage ratio is 233.15%, flat year-on-year. So over the past period of time, in face of various risks and challenges, the CCB has continued to think about the bottom line risk management mentality. And we continue to properly coordinate and management preventative risk management measures to make sure our overall risks are under control.

On the one hand, we continue to persist on high-quality development to hold true to our baseline security. We want to actively service the real economy, focusing on 5 priorities to increase our capacity in service of key areas. We are going to continue to do that, and our risk control measures will not weaken as such a result. Therefore, our NPL ratios continue to improve and our asset structure continues to improve. And furthermore, we to defend the risk bottom line resolutely through better risk control measures. We actively agilely built up our risk management systems. We enhanced the synergy across our 3 risk management bottom line mechanisms and integrated the group-wide risk management. And we have started to assess and improve our efforts when it comes to assessing the nature and trends of risks to offer more preventative measures. And over the past period of time, you asked about the increase in risk associated with retail loans. We continue to focus on the changes that need to be made. And with respect to our retail business, we are going to enhance the risk management control measures therein and continue to focus on the key risk hedges in the key processes of our retail loan risk management mechanism. So I could say that over the past year, these measures have worked.

The CCB's personal loans nonperforming ratio has not increased as quickly as it did before. With respect to the current environment, we think risk management in retail loans will still be the key focal point of our work. I believe as our management mechanism, our risk control measures continue to be fine-tuned and implemented better, we are confident that we are able to maintain quality business in our retail business and control the risks therein. The new year would be the first year of the 15th 5-year plan period. It would be a key and pivotal year to accelerate and improve management of a great nation. The CCB will continue to implement the President Xi Jinping's important guidance on the 3 key capabilities we have to continue to do risk management properly to better coordinate developmental security. We will work hard to achieve a good start, steady progress to continue to serve high-quality development and provide a solid foundation.

Thank you, Mr. Li. Next question is from the Hong Kong venue. May I invite the lady on the right third row to ask a question.

Hello. I'm [indiscernible] from Phoenix TV. I'd like to ask right now, the bank industry is accelerating its deployment in AI technology. May I ask what are the key initiatives that CCB has with respect to AI tech? May I ask Executive VP Lei Ming from the Hong Kong venue to respond to that question.

Thank you for the question. This is an important opportunity. The AI technology has provided a lot of opportunity, and we are going to implement a nation strategy to continue to do the AI plus implementation to focus on in-depth application of AI technology across all our business segments. Firstly, we have improved our foundational capability of AI capability. As you know, there's computational power, data and algorithms. In terms of computational power, we reserve enough room for our computation power for further development. We have 5 different data IDC centers with a high computational power clusters. And over the past year, in [indiscernible], our computational power continue to be unleashed. In [indiscernible] and in these 2 new areas, we have advanced IDCs, which are being built and the progress is very smooth. And we also reflect a flop of over CNY 14 billion.

So you can see that 1P is hundreds of billions of FLOPS. So 1 FLOP would be 1.4 billion of computing. So it also increased by 14% compared with 2025. We also have monitored the AI system better in terms of algorithm. So all the advanced models has been adopted like DeepSeek, [indiscernible]. And we also have the coordination of big models and small models. And so the decision-making AI is also being integrated. In terms of the digital model, we also accelerated the nonstructural model and the clearing of the stock data. So we know that the potential of AI depends largely on how linear and how better -- how well you comb the data. So we need to sort out the data in a good way. And we need to also set up a database, including the experience base.

We also introduced over 500 million items of data -- of experience data, and we also advanced the application of different sectors. We also have the people-centric principle, stick to high-quality development in 2 dimensions. And we also proceed the linear management, deeply integrate various data, continue to optimize the whole procedures, emphasize on the service of various smart applications and smart management, smart risk controls. We have constructed over 400 scenarios covering all the 6 areas. So I would like to report the 6 areas. First, in terms of the channel service, the interactive AI, interactive service and AI also completely upgraded our service. We try to have automated identification and very speedy respond through remote dialogue, we improved the quality and efficiency of service. For the employees, we also have assistance to the employees so that the convenience of work is also being elevated. Now we have various scenarios applied. And also, we are leading in the industry. If the employees want to check up some guidelines or principles or write an article or they want to utilize some data or check up the data, they can all rely on AI to help them. In terms of the business, [ Bonder ] is the smart application. [ Bonder ] means help the manager to get enough sales support.

And we have the retail and also inclusive finance. All the managers can be -- can get all the integrated, comprehensive and whole chain assistance. If a retail manager wants to get the customers, they cannot remember too many customers' names. They cannot cover so many customers. It will be already a high level for them to cover 100 of them. But through the smart assistance, they can manage over 20,000 customers. And so the manager can conduct high-quality and high-efficiency service to the clients, providing customized service to the clients. In terms of products, AI is deeply integrated into the product, inclusive the corporate and settlement businesses. In terms of international settlements, we also have the technological breakthrough through over 500 smart judgment points.

We also realized smart analysis, and we have also had the smart extraction of some anti-money laundering points and the cross-border settlement. We know that some cross-border settlements may be -- may come in the form of images or videos or even black and white papers. So we need to extract all these information through smart tools. And the third is about the operation. We comprehensively improved the intelligence level of operation. In terms of question response, AI already reached 99.42%. That means when our clients want to raise questions to the head office, 99% is answered by AI, firstly. And the AUM -- the active user daily is over 100,000. And we also have a dynamic monitoring and a dynamic management of AI. And AI also covered R&D and design. And in terms of coding, it contributed over 62% adoption over 48%. So it helps to improve the efficiency of employees. So the 48 test passing rate is very key.

We know that design system and design demand, whether it is truly useful, especially for a high-frequency transaction scenario of banks, we need to have a good test. So the test is generated by AI. It has greatly improved the efficiency. In terms of risk control, we also have AI plus risk control system. In terms of the licensing, the approval vetting system and approval system, we also use AI. We also rely on the generative AI to have a whole procedure application. In terms of approval level, we recorded a double-digit growth. And in the meantime, the average handling time also decreased by 30%. We also continue to enhance quality control. We highly emphasize on the compliance issue of AI. So -- and we have a multidimensional safety and risk control for AI.

And we also established the big model, the alerts and the red flag raising keywords so that the cybersecurity can be enhanced, the coordination also can be more smooth. We also guarantee the sensing of some sensitive information, the AI tools and also all these AI assistants -- when they are used, the users, the human users will be the gatekeeper so that all the AI application will be fully under control and monitoring of human. And we will also seize the trend and also continue to improve the efficiency and safety of AI adoption. We use technological power to support the high-quality development of our banks and support our financial system enhancement.

Thank you for your question. Now we would like to invite questions from Beijing. Gentlemen, on the right in the fourth.

I'm from [indiscernible] Securities. I'm [indiscernible]. My question is about savings and deposits. First, can you introduce our 2025 savings growth and characteristic. And then in 2026, our estimation is that a lot of the savings will be mature, especially the retail savings. So what is your feeling about it? What about -- how do you feel about the retail savings and any new changes and to respond to the new changes, what are the measures to be taken?

Okay. I will answer the question.

Thank you for your question. I would like to answer the first question first. We always have a people-centric principle, pursue high-quality development. In 2025, we enhanced the steady savings and deposits. The savings growth is steady, the optimal structure and have a deep structure. It continued to grow. By the end of last year, the volume is over CNY 30 trillion, increased by 1.21%, CNY 112 million, guarantee the volume of the capital. And we also have to look at the structure. First, about the retail savings, it has a rapid development. The balance also increased by 1.7 percentage points to [ 4.6%. ] And the corporate savings also increased by 2.66 percentage points. The savings also increased to over CNY 400 billion, and we're maintaining a leading edge in the peers. And we will also balance the quantity and quality. The saving is increasing steadily, and it is on par with the increase of clients. And the ratio is also very steady, also has a slight decrease as compared with 2024. And for the hot topics, the savings are growing steadily.

The volume is over CNY 18 trillion, deposits, nearly CNY 12 trillion. And the maturity level also is increasing. The acceptance level is good. And for the financial assets of the retails, it has some new dynamics flowing into the funds, for example. This momentum may be -- may continue this year. So we would ride on the trend. In 2025, AUM is over CNY 23 trillion, up by CNY 1.4 trillion. For insurance and some -- the precious metal products continue to grow. Next up, we will focus on the bottom logic of wealth management, continue to re-enrich the product structure and design more products for our clients. The third is about how we can guarantee the steady of savings. We will follow the momentum and meet the customer demands, the new changes, optimize the service and promote high-quality development of savings and deposits. For the corporate and retail needs, we have optimized our network like payroll services. Next step, we will also focus on some key products and the scenario coverage, expand the scale of our capital so that the high-quality capital can be maintained. We will also respond to the needs, provide comprehensive one-stop services and serving the corporate and the individual clients well. We will also continue to improve our system, provide a good experience to the clients.

Now I would like to hand over the next question to Hong Kong.

I'm from Hong Kong Commercial Day. I'm [indiscernible]. We noticed that in recent years, the fee income of bank industry is affected by the lowering of fee policy. So the Hong Kong banks are also diversifying the businesses to cope with the challenge. CCB has recorded positive growth of fee income. So we want to know what are the sources of fee income increase? And what about the intermediary business growth opportunities?

Okay. Mr. Sheng Liurong will answer the question. Please.

Well, thank you for that question, Mr. [ Zhang. ] As you've said, ever since 2023 due to a series of fee reduction measures, the growth in that revenue for our bank has faced some challenges. In 2025, overall, our intermediary revenue growth is pretty good. Overall, it has reached 5.31% growth or more than CNY 100 billion. Maintaining the momentum on one hand, we also see 2 positive features. Firstly, is asset-light. Our admin fee revenue accounts for 14.89% of overall fees, which is 0. 49% growth, which is leading the pack. And secondly, the revenue structure continues to be improved. In 2025, our asset management, our wealth management, our custody management service business contribution continues to go up. This means that our new types -- new kinds of intermediary services growth has seen new found momentum. In 2025, this new momentum is quite strong.

You mentioned that in 2025, our intermediary income and what are the highlight areas. There are 3 of the highlights. Firstly, we consolidate our advantage in our traditional strengths. On the one hand, we satisfy the fund money transaction needs for both the private and public clients. And secondly, our traditional bank cards, payment services, settlement services, the revenue on all those fronts continue to grow. Our bank cards, the payment settlement-related revenue has reached more than CNY 57 billion. In other words, more than half of our revenue comes from these sources, which is our base. Third-party payments is more than CNY 22 billion. Credit card, more than CNY 15 billion revenue. To public entities, more than CNY 11 billion, both foreign and domestic currencies. This is the area that you highlighted.

The growth in revenues in these areas continues to -- is about our solid foundations, our rapid networks and our continually improved and reiterated products. And as Mr. Zhang, our President has mentioned, our settlement accounts with public entities have almost reached 18 million different accounts. Several pieces more of data. Our mobile payments, cardholders has reached 493 million, right, almost 500 million. Our network accounts have more than 100 million different card holders and transaction has more than 2 billion transactions annually, right? These are all leading indicators compared with our peers. And secondly, a key area of development would be in 2025, the Chinese capital markets have recovered and the bond markets has also recovered somewhat, and we see opportunities.

So last year, in terms of wealth management and capital asset management, we also recorded positive growth. In terms of wealth management, it is a hard one success. In 2023, we -- actually, the fee income continued to decrease. So we have to enhance our customer base and expand the business scope so that we try to get more income through these measures. And we have intermediary services like selling insurance products, the funds and the precious metal products. So the income is around CNY 8 billion. So this is really a hard one results, and it attributes to the expansion of our customer base and also our services expansion. The wealth management clients also increased by 8 million. It also has a new increment of [ 930,000. ] In terms of the scale, the daily volume is around CNY 5 trillion. It does not include the traditional savings business. So this is about the other wealth management products. The growth is over 15%. In terms of asset management, the revenue is over CNY 15 billion. The AUM is around CNY 6.94 trillion. The growth is over 20%. Another thing worth noting is that wealth management and capital management has a very important link that is custody business.

Last year, the custody income also reached CNY 6.5 billion. The scale is over CNY 37 trillion. It also has a Y-o-Y increase of over CNY 3 trillion. So over the years of exploration, we have wealth management, asset management and custody business, and these 3 priorities have contributed a lot to our business. The third area is to promote our characteristics. Some businesses are leading like some specialty businesses, we have a competitive advantage. There are several aspects. First, we respond to the diversified needs -- financing needs of the customers. So like investment business has also recorded positive growth around CNY 7 billion. And -- we have a unique business called the fair selection business because we are construction bank, we are born for construction. We also prosper for construction. So in terms of infrastructure, we have a licensing that is the engineering consultants. Years ago, the real estate business is transforming and is restructuring. So the consultant business in real estate has declined, but we have transformed the business. In terms of key infrastructure and information infrastructure, we have expanded the business. In terms of the traditional infrastructure, like railway, the airport and some hydraulic projects and the railway businesses.

And for the new emerging sectors like the wind, solar power and also the fiber businesses, and we also expanded to a whole life cycle consultancy and the revenue also reached CNY 2.3 billion last year. And we also had the pension finance and the related business. We serve the clients of the social insurance, the settlement, the payment and also the loan of the residential insurance also are handled by us, and the revenue is also very good. So these are all the contribution of various fee sources. And for the 2026 outlook, I think it has both challenges and opportunities. In terms of challenges, you also mentioned just now that there is a policy of the fee reduction, so it will continue to have its impact. So this is a common challenge faced by the whole banking industry. But for opportunities, there are still a number of them. Just now, President Zhang also mentioned, no matter from the 15th Five-Year plan or the government address, we all emphasize on the importance of internal demands -- domestic demands and consumption is #1 for consumption demand. So we will continue to satisfy the new consumption models. So these will be good opportunity for our settlement business. like the consumption and the credit card segment businesses will continue to be enhanced. The second aspect is the capital market booming. The investment mindset is also enhanced.

So we have the wealth management, asset management and the custody businesses. These are 3 driving forces are very important. And we are also improving the modern system development in terms of stocks, securities, insurance, loans, et cetera. So we have multiple licenses of these different businesses. So in terms of integration of all these businesses, just as mentioned by Mr. Zhang, in terms of financing, the financing of credit, financing of different demands, we can also satisfy our clients. I believe overall, due to many reasons, our intermediary fee revenue can continue to maintain this steady growth trend.

Thank you -- thank you for your response. So recently, we have, of course, made an announcement about today's results announcement event -- and we have collected questions through channels such as our investor hotline e-mail, and we also have a live stream today, and some investors have left comments to interact with today's event. Most of the questions raised by online investors have been answered in previous questions. But A lot of people are still very curious about our 5 priorities. We're going to pick one of those questions.

This question reads Fintech is #1 amongst our 5 priorities. It's also a very important lever for building a modern service industry ecosystem and to cultivate new qualitative productive forces. What have you done in this area of Fintech?

I like Executive VP Lei Ming to answer that question.

With respect to the service area, service area covers nurturing tech talent, innovative tech services, conversion of R&D results and to build and run an ecosystem of technology. And we serve tech firms, tech parks, science parks, technological practitioners, developers, institutions and other entities. Specific work include all of our value-added services across the entire ecosystem of our bank services. I'm going to comment on those. Firstly, we actively develop our integrated service advantage. We are going to break through our industry and create a positive feedback loop. We are going to actively serving great financial [indiscernible] to have solid long-term investments into hard technology using our group capabilities in terms of enterprise innovation, we are accelerating equity financing efforts in early stages of investments. We use investment, equity, insurance, bonds, and we use many diverse tools to empower technological entrepreneurship and industry entrepreneurship.

We continue to develop clusters of innovative fund clusters. Please pay attention to the word clusters, right? We work alongside with in Hubei, Xiamen, Shanghai. In those areas, we work with the nationwide fund entity to establish innovative tech funds. We use this patient capital to nurture tech upgrade and enhancement and steadily promoting the progress of financial asset investment companies and equity pilot schemes. Cumulatively speaking, we have set up 28 pilot funds to enhance the toolkit we have for equity investment. More than 160 issuers investing into more than 180 different tech firms, empowering tech companies and optimize their financial capital structures. Secondly, we use our average advantage as a large bank to empower technological innovation and industry innovation and its integration and synergy. In terms of enterprise innovative capabilities, we have a patent valuation model.

Our technological valuation model has already obtained 3 nation level -- nationwide level authorizations. Our traditional sheets, right, the balance sheets, our profit sheets, our cash flow. In the past, our customer service managers basically look at these 3 things, right, to depend on your creditworthiness. But in order to adapt to the development of Fintech, we have innovatively looked at the fourth sheet, what we call an innovation sheet. And in that sheet, we introduced IP innovative capabilities and information pertaining to the founder of that tech firm to quantify and digitalize and to help more potential tech innovators to access funds and finance. And when it comes to enriching our financial products offerings, we have more convenience, conversion loans, tech innovation loans, we have a lot of special products, which effectively satisfy the differentiated needs of these tech firms across different phases. As you know, that tech firms grow very rapidly, but in the start-up phase, in the growth phase and the mature phase, they need different services in both scale and variety.

So therefore, throughout their entire life cycle, we must provide them with a basket of financial services, particularly for smaller micro firms. We have [indiscernible]. These are new specialized products, which has given out more than CNY 160 billion worth of loans year-on-year growth rate of more than 50%. We have CNY 5.25 trillion worth of loans to tech firms serving more than 300,000 different firms leading the way across the industry. Thirdly, in our work, we continue to focus on comprehensively building a team in tech and banking to service the nation's strategic development, focus on Beijing, the Greater Beijing, the Greater Shanghai area and the Greater Bay Area to serve the construction of these tech clusters, innovative clusters. Wuhan, [ Xian and Xin Cheng, ] these new innovative areas are also areas where we focus on providing more support on. We have a 5-tier interlinked. So at the headquarter levels, branches, Tier 2 branches and even our frontline branches.

At the headquarters, we have our innovative department, tech department to focus on our -- we have in several major key areas, we have innovative centers managed directly by the headquarters. In some key Tier 2 branches, we have set up a direct of the operated tech center. These centers can better serve more local clients. And we also have closed quarter services available. And throughout the group, we have enhanced the nurturing of a professional team to actively train people who knows finance, who knows tech, who knows the industry. We want these -- to train these talents to support our future endeavors.

In the future, our bank would continue to promote high-quality development of the entire Fintech ecosystem. We want to continue our quality traditions and to convert those in this new era as are part of the important forces and important implementations in serving our nationwide strategy to become an advanced and great nation in terms of tech and other areas.

Thank you. We only have time for 1 more question. May I ask the gentleman at the very far right to the back.

Thank you. Thank you for giving me an opportunity to ask this question. I'm [ Lijun ] from GF Securities Company. I'd like to ask a question about personal consumption loans. Recently, the Government has launched quite a lot of stimulus policies. The recent discount loans have been widened in scale and the barrier of entry has been lowered as well. May I ask what's the growth of possible consumption loan at CCB and what are the applications looking like? And furthermore, when it comes to helping stimulate domestic consumption, what more can CCB do?

Thank you for the question. Allow me to answer -- to answer that question. So the CCB continues to implement the strategical initiative of stimulating domestic demand and personal consumption to benefit the public and continue to promote these initiatives to participate in the major initiatives by the Chinese government to continue to provide more fiscal support and financial support for SMEs and personal loans to satisfy the many different consumption needs of our nation. Personal needs, personal credit card development indicators continue to be healthy. We effectively are able to stimulate and help financing such consumption behavior. The total balance have reached CNY 620-plus billion, which is an increase of CNY 115 billion, which is more than CNY 100 billion growth for 3 consecutive years. The balance and growth is all leads our industry peers. Ever since the implementation of this optimization, we continue to ramp up our advertisement on these discount loans.

We offer discounts wherever we have to lower the spending and consumption costs of our customers. We have 630,000-plus customers and provide discount loans for more than 18 million different transactions. We have done 3 things primarily. Firstly, we actively promote collaboration between bank and businesses to engage in synergistic efforts. We work with commercial 9 commerce borough departments to roll out a spring festival initiative. We have specifically themed consumption stimulus activity to stimulate consumption and more than 25,000 businesses participate, reaching 0.75 million customers with a ratio of 2.91, 18.5% growth and 21.3% growth in consumption and consumption loans throughout the spring festival period. We continue to roll out the basket of policies of stimulating domestic demand to continue to build out more personal loans, loans for relevant entities and credit card loans. In terms of stimulating personal consumption, we still lead amongst our peers.

We continue to handle more subsidy issuance by the government fiscal department, a lot of old for new policies for home appliances and other things. And last year, in 331 cities, we gave out CNY 20-plus billion worth of subsidies for the government, driving CNY 180-plus billion worth of consumption. This year, we provide systematic support and actively enhance the efficiency of these events. Thirdly, we focus on key consumption areas and to support financial innovation. We want to enhance the integration capability of our service spending, new types of spending, personal consumption type of model, and we want to adopt a new consumption model. We want new financial services to merge into new scenarios and merge with new forms of businesses. And at CCBs [indiscernible] and our lifestyle app, we built a lifestyle platform, consolidating resources to provide our customers with relevant loans such as upgrading, renovation, buying a car, buying houses. We have a lot of one-stop service and financing solutions.

The next step, we're going to continue to work along the main line of stimulating domestic consumption to further leverage our own strong digitalization capabilities to further work alongside in tandem with the government to enhance the quality and efficacy of domestic consumption stimulation policies to further contribute to society.

Okay. That's the Q&A session for today. I'd like to thank everybody's participation. Our management have engaged in a frank professional in-depth communication with respect to questions on everybody's minds. I hope that helped everybody better understand CCB's strategic measures, our performance and our development trends. We have always cared about management of our market value and investor returns. We have already established the CCB Holdings Limited market value management scheme, and we have relevant provisions and principles to govern the work relevant in the management of our market value. Up to late 2025, our market cap has reached USD 265 billion, which is a 25% increase compared with late 2024. We will continue to promote our high-quality development to continue to enhance value creation capabilities.

We will continue to use steady cash dividends to thank our investors to enhance our information disclosure and IR management to continue to promote our investment value to the market and actively implement our market value management mechanism. That's basically the content for today's event. If you have any other questions and queries, please feel free to contact us at our IR team at our Board office. Finally, I wish everybody good day.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]

Distinguished investors, analysts and the media friends, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. I'm very happy to welcome all of you to China Construction Bank's 2025 Interim Results Announcement. Thank you all for your long-standing trust, interest and support to CCB.

Today's briefing has two venues in Beijing and Hong Kong, will be connected by video and also live streamed to shareholders and the public. Attending in Beijing include President of CCB, Mr. Zhang Yi; Vice President, Mr. Lei Ming. Attending in Hong Kong include Vice President, Mr. Ji Zhihong; Vice President, Mr. Li Jianjiang; and the Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Sheng Liurong.

Also present are Non-Executive Directors, Independent Directors and supervisors. Heads from head office departments and our Hong Kong entities are also attending. I'm Deputy President, Han Jing.

CCB's 2025 interim results have been officially released today. The presentation material is also available on our website for your reference. We will begin with the remarks by President, Zhang Yi, followed by Q&A session.

Now President, Zhang, please.

Distinguished investors, analysts and media friends, good afternoon. Welcome all of you to CCB's 2025 interim results announcement. Thank you all for your care, your trust and support. Over this year, under the socialized spirit upheld by President Xi Jinping and we have executed the State Council's policy, followed a steady principle and also, we begin -- we have a very high-quality development.

For the first half of this year, our operation performance is very good. The key indicators are also very good. We have an operating income of CNY 385 billion, increased by 2.95%. The net fee and commission income is CNY 65 billion, increased by 4%. Net profit provisions CNY 290 billion, increased by 3.37%.

Now I would like to disclose more details to you. First, we have the three stabilities in assets, liabilities and the key indicators and the performance is very steady with some developments. In terms of core assets, it's growth very steady. By the end of June 30, we have also released -- we have the gross loans to customers of CNY 27.4 trillion, increased by 6.2%.

The financial investments also stand at CNY 11.77 trillion, increased by 10%. Core liabilities also increased by 6% to CNY 30.47 trillion. And the NIM is standing at 1.4%; ROA, 0.77%; ROE 10.08%; CAR is at 19.51%. And all the indicators are also leading in the industry.

In terms of the three optimizations. We have the optimization assets, liabilities and income structure, and it takes up 90%. And we also have the resources allocation to key areas. We optimized the asset structure and we also have the loans and the financial investments of over 88%. And for the optimized liability, the structure is also very good.

We have a 43% to the domestic demand deposits. Also optimized our income structure and the net fee commission income continued to perform well. It takes up 16.9%. It is also leading in the industry. And we have optimized our investment policy and the NIM and the noninterest income on the net level, also increased by 111% to CNY 34 billion.

In terms of controls, we also have very good results in linear controls and the quality has been also optimized. The cost-to-income ratio was 23.72% outperforming our peers. And in terms of risk control, we have also optimized our structure. NPL ratio is only 1.33%, a decrease of 1 bp from 2024. And we also have a very good capital control results.

The CAR is 14.34%. The capital utilization efficiency is also leading in the industry under our the public support, we have a strengthened high-quality financial service. And we -- for example, we have coordinated the 5-dimensional and integrated service system. We also have promoted these integrated 5-dimensional system, especially with alignment of a customer service business process and we try to reach new growth engine.

In terms of procedures, the product channels, the institution pensions, we also have a 5-dimension system. The loans to technology-related industries is standing at CNY 5.15 trillion, increased by 16%. And we have also completed the establishment of filing of 9 AIC equity pilot business funds.

In terms of green finance, the balance is CNY 5.72 trillion, increased by 14.88%. We have underwritten green and sustainable development bonds of CNY 235.6 billion. Utilized financial instruments, including green bonds, green leasing, green trusts to support and cultivate the sustainable development.

We have diversified our green service finance, ESG is also maintaining at a global leading level. In terms of inclusive finance, we also optimized and upgraded off-line and online system. And we have this CCB Huidongni ecosystem. The balance of inclusive loans to SMEs is CNY 3.74 trillion, increased by 9.8%.

And we also try to improve the business capability of three pillars. We have also maintained a leading level in terms of pension management. The pillar 2 AUM of CCB pension management is CNY 654 billion, increased by 53.96% in terms of annuity customers.

In terms of digital finance, we have empowered 274 cumulative scenarios, MAU of the Binary Stars is standing at CNY 243 million, grew by 14.4%. The loans to core industries of the digital economy is CNY 852.4 billion, grew by 13.44%. We also upheld the core mission of financial services and supported the national development with balanced focus on scale and quality.

In terms of infrastructure-related industries, there is a steady growth in loan balances medium and long-term loans to manufacturing industry reached CNY 1.79 trillion, grew by 10%. We also have aggregated our corporate loan growth in major regions, including Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Greater Bay, et cetera.

We also have the action plan to support the private enterprises. The loans to private enterprises totaled CNY 6.59 trillion, up by 9.92%. The subscription volumes for government and local government bonds also reached a record high. We also have accelerated the implementation of the various policies. We also injected financial momentum in the domestic demand and promoting consumption over CNY 90 billion in loans have been issued.

Personal consumption loans reached CNY 614.2 billion, up by CNY 86 billion from end of last year, ranking the first in both balance and growth among our peers. We also issued 1.26 billion debit cards with the consumption transaction volume reaching CNY 12.12 trillion. Credit card loans reached CNY 1 trillion, maintaining a leading position in the industry.

In terms of personal housing loans, there is -- the number is CNY 400 billion with a balance of CNY 6 trillion. Both figures rank in the first among our peers.

Thirdly, we also accelerated the implementation of a comprehensive set of incremental policies including the supportive mechanism for SMEs with credit exceeding CNY 2 trillion, we strengthened support for the three major projects serving the urbanization projects. We also increased loans to the stock buybacks, serving over 100 listed companies and their major shareholders.

Firstly, we fully support the high-level opening up, support the rationalization of RMB and the cross-border RMB settlement is CNY 3 trillion, up by 23%. The CCB London Branch after being the RMB clearance Bank, it has reached CNY 148 trillion, the largest RMB overseas clarence bank.

And there is a total asset of institution in RCEP region exceeding CNY 200 billion. We also realized rapid profit growth of overseas institutions with a Y-o-Y increase of 57%. We maintained a customer-centric approach with growing improvement on quality and efficiency.

First, we enhanced the institutional operation and a deepened customer service through delicacy management with the integration -- unified indicator system and there is various financial service needs with urban, rural, domestic, foreign commercial investment banking, integration, online/offline integration and group-wide integration.

We also established the daily -- the institutional evaluation, daily operation and the customer profiling indication system, we enhanced the multidimensional market awareness and provide differentiated customer services. And we also continue to strengthen the customer base. We served 12.26 million corporate customers, up by 590,000. Personal customers is 777 million, up by 5.7 million.

The daily average AUM of payroll disbursement increased by CNY 644 billion. Payroll disbursement service is standing at 91 million. We are also awarded the best large-scale retail bank in China from the Asian Bankers for five consecutive years. And we have also accelerated our risk control mechanism. We also have the coordinated system of our domestic and overseas branches enhanced the group's integrated risk management and control capability.

We also focused on risks in key areas. The NPL ratio is only 1.3%, down by 1 bp. The special mentioned loans ratio is 1.81%, also down by 0.08%. Provisional coverage also increased by 5.8% to 239.4%. And we also continued our inclusive finance services and we also controlled some -- we have overall risk levels for real estate and the local government loans controllable.

We also continuously improved compliance management and we try to guarantee the stable and safe operation of the cyber systems. This year is also the threshold year for the 14th 5-year plan and the 15th 5-year plan. And we faced with various opportunities and challenges, and we have some basic trend which remains the same.

We will also stand at the new landscape and based on our principles and policies to cope with the uncertainties from the external environment.

We will focus on the key areas of economic development, providing more financial services to the real economy. We'll focus on five priorities, and we'll continue to improve on comprehensive financial services at an enterprise level. We will focus on the key projects in special infrastructure projects, and we will implement this spirit of urban work confidence by the central government and seize the structural opportunities and implement the consumption stimulus projects, so we can implement the loan project for personal loans and SME loans.

We will stay committed to high-quality development, and we will optimize our operational strategy. On the asset side, we will optimize structure and extend duration. On the liability side, we will focus on foundation and control term and lower cost. On the income side, we will strengthen our basic income and explore new drivers.

On the services side, we will enhance customer engagement and product portfolio, so we can build market competitiveness. We will prevent risks and build strong risk mitigation mechanism. In risk prevention, we will improve our ability to promote development with optimized credit policies and loan-granting policies, so customers from tech companies can play a better role, and we will focus on real estate, inclusive finance and retail finance in risk control.

This year marks the 20th anniversary of our IPO. With your support, our shareholders and with the support of the society, we will focus on our main business, and we will stay true to the financial development with Chinese characteristics, and we will contribute our financial power to the development of China's modernization and will create more value to our shareholders and stakeholders.

Thank you. Mr. Zhang, now we will take questions. We will now open the questions from Beijing and Hong Kong, that will take questions in turns. [Operator Instructions] Please begin. We will now take a question from Beijing.

Ms. Han from Citi. In your presentation, I'm very pleased to see some improvement compared with the Q1 results, especially in revenue. Can you please expand on the drivers? And what's your outlook for the profit for this year? And what are the further measures that you can resort to boost income further?

Mr. Zhang will take the question.

Thank you, Mr. [ Ma ]. This year we have seen marginal improvement in all the business and profit indicators. Operational income and profit before provision has seen positive growth, 2.95% and 3.37%, respectively. ROA, ROE NIM, cost-to-income ratio and capital adequacy ratio have been industry-leading.

We have taken the following measures: Number one, we improved on our capability to balance volume and price. We have seen narrowed decline in NIM, and we strengthened high-quality financial services. In the first half, interest-bearing assets have increased by 7.45% on an average daily, that's 1.53 more percentage points than the first quarter.

Loan and bond investment have added CNY 2.7 trillion compared with the end of the 2024. That's a record in 3 years, and we focus on key areas in optimizing credit structure among the five priorities. And in infrastructure and in loans to manufacturing industries, we have seen fast growth and the growth rate is higher than bank average.

And we strengthened our efforts in traded finance and personal finance. And in personal finance, the growth rate is over 5%, and we have taken a more refined approach in pricing management. The NIM in the first half was 1.4%, and there was only a 1 percentage point down compared with Q1.

Demand deposit is 41% and that's industry-leading.

Secondly, we fostered new drivers, increasing the contribution from noninterest income. In the first half, noninterest income is at CNY 99.2 billion, up 25.9%. Noninterest income takes up 25.7% of operating income, 4.68 percentage points compared with the last year.

On the first half, loan commission and fees have added 4.02%, especially in wealth management, investment banking, asset management and transaction bank. On the other hand, we strengthened our market analysis and transaction strategy leading to higher income in other noninterest income.

Thirdly, we have improved our cost management system. In the first half, we have seen a 1.18% increase in operating income; cost to income ratio, 23.72%, down 0.43 percentage points, industry-leading.

Fourthly, we solidified the foundation for risk control. We have seen very stable asset quality. NPL ratio being 1.33%, down by 1 bp compared with the last year. We have seen higher risk mitigation capabilities. Provision ratio is up 5.8 percentage points, reaching 239.4%.

Looking at the whole year, we remain steadfast with the high-quality development. We will optimize our asset liability structure and focus on comprehensive financial services, and we will strengthen asset quality control, we will remain a stable profit growth.

Thank you, Mr. Zhang. Now we will take another question from Hong Kong.

From Citibank. I have a question related to NIM. Among the major banks, CCB has very good NIM levels. In Q2, the decline in NIM has narrowed. So from asset and liability perspective, can you please talk about NIM outlook? With several rate cuts, what's the impact on NIM? And when do we expect the NIM to return to a normal level?

Mr. Sheng will take the question.

Thank you for the question. Mr. Zhang in his presentation mentioned that in Q2, our NIM was 1.4%. So there was a month-to-month quarter-on-quarter narrowing that was a 1 percentage point decrease. But if you compare that with our peers, this level is still industry-leading from both asset and liability perspective. On the asset last year, LPR cuts and the LPR deposit rate cuts in May this year, both factors have led to market changes where interest rates remain low.

To the industry in general and to CCB, especially, they have some impact on yield on the asset side. There was a 45 percentage points decline in the yield rate of asset side. But on the liability side, as Mr. Zhang puts it, we have strengthened the control of liability asset control, especially on the long-term deposit with long duration and high interest.

And last year, in the first half, the interest rate for deposits were down by 32 bp. On top of deposit, we have controlled the liability side with the interest rate down by 34 bp, and we have optimized asset allocation, and we controlled the interbanking assets, and we increased our effort to allow more loans and bond investment.

In the first half, loans and financial investments when it comes to daily balances, their share in interest-generating assets have seen a 1.6 percentage point increase. So the higher share of high-yield assets has offset the decline in NIM.

Your second question is relating the impact of lower LPR on NIM going forward and the general NIM outlook going forward.

Well, in general, both the LPR cut last year and the deposit rate cut in this year have some lingering effect. Given that the pricing of loans have developed faster than deposit rate, so there will be further pressure on NIM in decline going forward. And our stance is that given that the Central Bank is improving a monetary policy framework and especially in promoting transmission mechanism of interest rates, so there are some changes in how they use monetary policy tools.

In recent years, in guiding the interest cuts on the deposit side, on the loan side and supporting the real economy, they emphasized the balance between liability and asset side. So in the recent years with LPR cuts, they have resorted to some mechanisms in guiding the decline of interest rates on the liability side.

Last year, on top of guiding the interest rate cut on the deposit side, they have also strengthened the self-disciplinary mechanism of interbank deposits. So last year, since Q4 2024, the interest rate in interbank loans have declined even further.

And you may have noticed that since the first half of this year, the Central Bank has used better monetary policy tools. They have been more prudent, especially using structural monetary policy tools to guide the banking industry to support key economies. For example, in May, the government came up with the refinancing tools worth CNY 500 billion to support services industry and elderly care.

And the use of this monetary policy tools has less impact on NIM. So we believe that when it comes to NIM trend, we believe the decline of NIM will further narrow and we are confident that through our proactive management, our NIM level will be industry-leading going forward as usual.

Thank you, Mr. Sheng. Now we'll take a question from Beijing.

From China Media Group. I have a question regarding the directions of loans. You have presented on the business results in the first half. What are the key areas that you lend your loan to? And in the first half, what's your arrangement for infrastructure loans in the first half and the second half? And 2 days later, the government will roll out the subsidy for interest rates for consumption loans and are you prepared for that?

Mr. Zhang Yi will answer the question.

Thank you. CCTV journalist for your question. The first is about the loan issuance. For the first half of this year, CCB has executed the guidelines and we also stick to the market expansion, support the way economy to transform and upgrade. So we have had a balanced loan issuance.

Actually, the loan issuance increased by CNY 1 trillion. It is faster than the industry average and we have supported the real economy. In terms of the direction, the corporate loans increased very fast. And actually, the speed is at 1.59% -- 8.59% and it is standing at CNY 11 trillion.

For the personal loan increase, it's quite steady and there is also the domestic loan increase. There are several characteristics. First is the consumption loan is continuing to be solidified, including the personal loan, the personal housing loan and the consumption loan continue to keep a leading position in the industry.

In terms of the total amount and the increment of personal loans, it is leading in the industry. The inclusive loan balance reached CNY 1.74 trillion. And for the retail loan, it is also maintaining at a leading level in terms of the percentage.

Secondly, we have a very precise direction support, especially on the 5 key areas. The average speed is faster than the industry average. In terms of technology loan, it is also increased by 16.81%, standing at CNY 5 trillion. And for the strategic and emerging industry loans, it is a CNY 3.3 trillion, increased by 18.92%.

In terms of some green and low carbon transformation loans, it is CNY 5.72 trillion, with a speed of 14.88%. In terms of digital core industry, the loans is also standing at CNY 852 billion with a speed of 13%. So for the loans, actually, the growth rate is developing at an industry-leading position with very steady growth.

Just now you mentioned infrastructure loans. CCB is also born with the mission of construction. We also prosper because of development and construction. So the infrastructure loans is our pillar. Over the years, we have strengthened our capability to strengthen the infrastructure development of the country.

And we also stick to the whole cycle loans and the related services. We have also enhanced our financial services to the infrastructure development and the related loan growth is also higher than the industry average. It also increased by 0.23 percentage points on a Y-o-Y basis for the second half of this year with the key national projects execution and the application of some dedicated and earmarked bonds, there will be better results.

We also have taken a more powerful KPI policy and optimized some credit loan policy, and we also have the white list to be included in our head office. We had the related mechanism to support the infrastructure loans and the results will be more obvious for the second half.

Your third question is about the personal retail loans -- consumption loans and the service sector loans. For the personal consumption loan, we attach high importance. We also made our whole bank deployment. We think that the policy issuance will decrease the cost for the people to file loans. There will be a leverage effect for more loans to the consumption area.

And we should also have -- we should also identify the real needs from the people and try to integrate the loan issuance to the consumption scenarios, try to improve high-quality financial services so that the bonus of these national policies will be released in a better way, and the consumption potential will be fully released. So that's all of my answer to your questions.

Thank you Mr. Zhang. Next question will be to the Hong Kong venue. The gentlemen from the left-hand side on the fifth row. Thank you.

I'm from HSBC. I'm Gary. I'm an analyst. We noticed that for the second half, your bond investment also increased to -- from CNY 10 trillion to CNY 11 trillion with a relatively high speed with fluctuation of bond market, how you make your plans for bond investment? And we also noticed that the Ministry of Finance also had some policies on the stock market stamp. So that -- will that affect your bond investment?

Thank you for your question. For the first half, the landscape is having two characteristics: First, low interest, and then there is the some fluctuation on both sides. So we have also combed our thoughts and optimized our policies. First, we actively participate in the real economy, providing various supports.

For the financing amount, it is around CNY 8.8 trillion. This amount is higher than last year. We try to guarantee the smooth issuance of the local bonds and the national bonds so that the financing demands of the real economy can be better met. So we try to leverage our role as a big commercial bank.

And the RMB bond investment also increased by CNY 1 trillion as compared with last year. For the incremental, it is mainly flowing to the national bond, local bond and the corporate bond. The percentage of these three types takes up is 92%. And in terms of a green bond investment, it is also increasing by several times.

Secondly, our strategy is more proactive. The total bond investment scale is at CNY 11 trillion. It is quite a high level. For these such scale, we have to take a more proactive managing policy. And for the first half, affected by various internal and external factors. The interest rate is also fluctuating.

We also put emphasis on the structure of the inventory, try to adjust various structures. The percentage of treasury also increased by 1 percentage points or the national bond. We also seized the opportunity of the markets and try to optimize the structure of the secondary market investment.

And we have also kept a leading position in the industry in this regard. And we also try to improve the capacity of the market -- as a market maker. Our country has also -- is also the world's second largest bond market. So we try to improve our capacity as a market maker. And we also increased the percentage of the financial assets with a market value. It also increased by 6.5 percentage points.

And we also try to expand our services of Panda bond and various other credit bonds. The customer volume also increased by 75%. And we also participated in the multilevel bond market development through various ways and we try to improve our services, increased the types of the technology-related bonds.

And the position also increased by CNY 14 billion from our customer side. And in terms of scale, we are also ranking the first. In terms of the underwriting volume over CNY 400 billion. We also promoted the facilitation of bond market development, try to push forward the opening up of the capital market.

You also mentioned another issue. Recently, for the newly issued national bonds and local bonds, there is a new policy. With a new policy by the Ministry of Finance, the overall bond market is very smooth and steady and the impact actually is quite neutral for CCB.

We try to adjust -- we think that this policy is quite beneficial for the inventory bonds. And our percentage of these type of bonds is 79%. So in the future, this policy will be more beneficial for such premium assets. In the future, we will follow closely the macro policy and these assets development.

We will also attach importance to the taxation policy and its impact. And we will continue to make a good role of the market maker and try to improve high-quality transaction services to our clients. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ji. Now we will invite the Beijing venue to raise questions. The gentlemen from the right-hand side to the fourth row.

I'm from Guangdong Development Securities. I'm [ Lijun ] I want to ask a question about deposits. Can you elaborate on the increase of deposits, what measures you have taken? And with the interest cut environment, what kind of measures will you take to stabilize and increase the deposits?

Thank you for your questions. I will answer this question. Marks once mentioned, deposits is always important for a bank, CCB has always put deposits as the pillar of our bank, especially in recent 2 years, the interest rate is on the down trend. So the deposit balance is a benchmark for high-quality bank.

For the first half of this year, the deposits of CCB is steady with optimal structure and also with optimal interest rate. Mr. Zhang also introduced. And for the first half, the two deposits volume is also increased by CNY 1.76 trillion with a total amount of CNY 30 trillion and the interest payment ratio also decreased by 32 bp, the increasing ratio is also at the industry-leading position.

We have several measures. First, we should also emphasize on the expansion of our talent pool, we have to expand more of our customer base. We have always taken this as our basic principle. For the first half, our corporate customers is over 12 million and our personal customers is 777 million. This is the basis of our achievements.

Secondly, we must adapt to market dynamics with more innovative products so we can create a closed loop of all industrial chains. As Mr. Zhang put it, we need to adapt to market changes to corporate customers to personal customers. We need to take an integrated approach. Through different scenarios and platforms, we must enhance customer engagement so we can connect ecosystems of customers.

And vertically, we need to extend our industrial services chain and supply chain. As for clusters of industrial products, we will make steady progress with marketing services. So through this closed loop, our product mixes will be integrated into every step of their production process. So the funding of the customers can be kept in this close loop. So this will lay a good foundation for our low-cost deposit growth.

Thirdly, we will leverage on technology and data, especially AI as an enabler, so we can target customers in custom profiling and marketing. This is true in both personal and corporate finance. We have customer insights and we can identify right products and services. For example, as for long-tail customers, we will resort to good management.

In the first half, we have added CNY 130 billion of new corporate loans and in retail business through robotics services, we have seen renewal of 95% of our existing services. This is not an easy job because we are talking about a trillion level size in across the bank without technology, without data, this is impossible.

Fourthly, we need to adapt ourselves to the new market reality that lower deposit interest rate, the customers are going for multi-asset in their asset management. By the end of June this year, the AUM in our personal finance exceeded CNY 22 trillion and to customers -- corporate customers, the total assets amounted to CNY 12.8 trillion.

We have added 4.48 million customers in personal wealth management services and we have seen added value from personal customers of CNY 1.7 trillion. So with steady deposit growth, another indicator that I'd like to share is that we have a higher contribution from demand deposits in the first half. Demand deposits exceeded 30%, a 15% year-on-year growth. That means through our innovative management systems, we have seen higher share in demand deposit, which is a bell weather for a good customer relationship and it's also a good sign for a bank's integrated service capabilities.

Going forward, CCB will keep a close eye on market dynamics and especially in capital market when people have higher demand for wealth managed services, we will foresee the trends of the capital market. So we will move with this trend and further innovating our services, so we can lay a much solid foundation for deposit services. In this way, CCB will improve its capabilities to serve the real economy. And that's what I wanted to say for this question.

Now we will take another question from Hong Kong.

From Phoenix TV. I have a question related to asset quality. In the first half, the asset quality was stable. Could you please talk about which measures you have taken? And what are the features of the asset quality in the first half? And what's your outlook for asset quality in the second half?

Vice President, Mr. Li would take the question.

Thank you. CCB has always committed itself to risk control. And we will take a visionary approach in risk control. By the end of June 2025, NPL ratio was 1.33%, down by 0.01 percentage points. Special mention loans 1.81 percentage points, down by 0.08 percentage point compared with the same period of last year.

We have seen stabilized asset quality. Provision coverage ratio is 239.4%, up 5.8%. We have maintained very good risk mitigation capability in key areas, in real estate aside from meeting the demand for financing from the industry, we have deeply analyzed the dynamics of risks, and we have strengthened monitoring so we can prevent these risks by end of June NPL ratio from a real estate industry is down by 0.05 percentage points compared with the end of 2024 in inclusive finance.

Given the risks in recent years, while we are supporting consumption and support SMEs, we are also enhancing our risk management system and building a better risk management system, so we can embed this risk control tools in our credit policy and process, and we are strengthening different processes from warning to loan collection, so we enhance the management of risks from end to end.

We can increase the efficiency of risk control so we can guarantee the stable development of our business with stable and steady measures in risk control. The asset quality of a bank has to do with the real economy, but it's also closely linked to its risk control capabilities. On a macro level, in the first half, we have seen very steady economic progress with sound, prudent macroeconomic measures.

And in some key areas, the risks have been mitigated steadily. To CCB, we will continue to monitor our credit policies, and we will go for differentiated policies, and we will enhance our credit policy. We will keep a close eye on key areas and take different measures to mitigate risks and further solidify the foundation of risk management.

Going forward, in the second half, we will implement the instructions from the Party Central Committee and the state control on mitigating financial risks, and we will enhance risk control adjust structure and strengthen our own risk mitigation capabilities. So going forward, in the predictable future, we can maintain a stable indicators and we have abundant risk mitigation capabilities.

Thank you, Mr. Li. And next question will come from Beijing.

From Economic Journal. CCB has the first-mover advantage in financial technology or fintech, so in digital technology and digital economy, what's the latest progress? And is this work efficient and what's our next step plan?

Mr. Lei will take the question.

Digital transformation, fintech and serving digital economy. These are the responsibilities of our bank endowed by the Central Committee of CCB and also one of the important drivers behind high-quality development, we will implement government instructions and focus on the five priorities, solidifying the foundation for digital transformation and support digital services and the digital economy.

There are four major areas. Number one, the foundation for digital economy will be strengthened. After the transition to distributed system, we have seen higher system capability. And the processing time is reduced by 30% and our integrated transaction handling capability is doubled, and we proceed with AI technology, and we have thousands -- billions of parameters in CCB large language model.

In risk management, our smart assistant will provide end-to-end immersive service to customers and our special customer managers can serve more customers from 200 to 600. Our AI assistant can cover different services, financial analysis, assessment. They can complete financial analysis report in minutes, not hours, and it takes only 40 seconds to generate financial assessment report and 80% of our personnels are using AI in coding and 30% of the coding is used in reality.

At the same time, we strengthened the governance of enterprise level data. So data safety and security and quality can be managed systematically. In the first half, we have seen an 8% increase in the users of AI services, especially in product innovation, risk control, et cetera. So we have more multiplying effect. We use CPU distributed time technologies to increase the computing power by 25%, so we can use resources more efficiently and the technologies are greener.

Secondly, we have enhanced our digital ecosystem. We strengthened our mobile app as the main service platform, and we continue to optimize customer experience, so we have more new products. And when it comes to healthy life, we focus on consumption, financing and personal financing so we can allow customers to use our financial services in different scenarios.

By the end of June, these two platforms combined have served a 530 million customers. Monthly average customers, active customers reached 243 million, up 44.4%. We have wealth management customers on our mobile banking of 40 million, up 14.75%. And we have strengthened our RMB operation system. By the end of June, the personal wallet and corporate wallet for digital RMB have increased by 9.96% and 10.73%. The accumulated number of consumptions have increased by 16.75%, reaching 522 million, leading the industry.

Thirdly, in digital operations, we have made huge progress, especially in personal customers. By the end of June through different steps of our process from monitoring to customer access, we can serve 62.57 million customers, a 6x increase in 3 years. We have customer managers serving 18,000 customers and the AOM online is 10% higher than offline, and we are strengthening the operational management system at an enterprise level, so we can improve customer experience.

We have enabled our customers to finish their services at one go and leveraging on ICR knowledge spectrum and other new technologies, we can enable the digital technology used in opening foreign currency accounts and other services.

Our risk monitoring platforms have supported our subsidiaries to mitigate risks. 98% of our customers have been able to send warnings to the bank before the risks were exposed. Fourthly, our highly efficient services can enable the development of digital economy. By the end of June, the loan to core digital economic sectors have amounted to CNY 852 billion, up by 13.44%.

We offer Internet companies, small- and medium-sized companies with different services, for example, payment, invoicing, wealth management and data, and we will continue to upgrade our supply chain finance, so we can create all process of supply chain in the first half. In total, we have served 132,000 customers with funding support of CNY 688 billion. The financing loan is CNY 782 million.

We will continue to strengthen the digital transformation and promote the low-carbon green finance and digital center development. We will also try to release the power of the computation and algorithm, try to promote the systematic development of AI with the systematic application and also the database development at the corporate level. We will also have the whole chain systematic digital transformation to contribute our power to the digital transformation of the country.

Now we will hand over the question to the Hong Kong venue. The lady from the fourth row on the left-hand side.

I'm from Credit Suisse. I want to ask a question about the fee income. I also noticed that for the first half, your net fee income also has a positive growth of 4%. What is the driving force of this growth? How do you look at the whole year prospect? And what are the measures to promote the better performance of fee income growth?

I will invite Mr. Sheng Liurong, our CFO, to answer.

Thank you for your question. You are the old friend of CCB. Thank you for your support. So for the first half, of this year, we also acted according to the flow of the policy and the market and try to improve our service capability and try to create more fee income. Just now, Mr. Zhang also brief to you, for the fee income, we realized CNY 65.2 billion, with an increase of 4%.

You mentioned what -- you asked what are the influencing factors? There were three actually. First, our customer base continues to be enhanced and solidified. The central government encouraged the banks to strengthen the support to the physical economy. So with such macro policy, we increased our expansion and outreach to the customers and projects. We continue to expand our customer pool. There were some statistics.

For example, for the first half, our credit customers exceeded 100 million. For the wealth management and private bank customers also increased over 20% by growth. Our corporate customers in RMB settlement also exceeded 70 million. The increment is nearly 1 million. We also have a system called [indiscernible] . So this is the investment banking service. This is about providing the financial consultancy services to our corporate banks. And in this system, we have over 70,000 customers. So we have realized the fee income increased because of this customer base expansion.

Secondly, we also improved our service capability, for example, to the private banking customers through digital operation and linear management, our third-party payment also contributed over CNY 10 billion then in terms of the fee income. And we also increased our coverage of the products. So the whole corporate customer-related income is also very steady. We are also leading in the industry.

Just now President Zhang also mentioned for the first half, we also increased our loans to the physical economy, especially for some key projects and key regions. And in the meantime, our loans, the investment banking business and the engineering consultancy services also increased the income. The third factor is we see the opportunity of the recovery of the capital market. For the underwriting fund business, the growth is over 20%.

We also have the CTS no matter from the volume of the customer or the volume of the deposits, they also realized a very good increase. For CTS income, it increased by over 40%.

For the insurance business, -- for the first quarter, the volume increased, but the income has not realized positive growth and for the second quarter, there is very positive results, we realized both positive growth in terms of the volume and also the customer and the income increased by nearly 30%. So because of -- thanks to these three factors, the fee income increased very positively and it also contributed to the optimization of our income structure. I will explain in two aspects.

First, as just mentioned by Mr. Zhang, our noninterest income also takes up -- represented 25% of the whole income. For the fee income actually, the fee income and commission income represents 16.9%. Actually, Ms. [indiscernible] you are a professional analyst, what does it reflect? I think you are very -- you can tell that.

It shows our light asset, percentage is also increasing. Another factor is that we have increased some new function. For example, the wealth management and investment banking, the income of these areas also exceeds the 60% of the whole fee income. For the next step, we will continue to stick to our principle putting the customer at the center, improve our service.

We will try to do two solidification and two improvements. For the solidification, we will solidify our basic -- our fundamental capability and policies. We will try to stimulate the internal demand and promote consumption. For the second half, we will increase the business on credit cards, on consumption and also several key and hot areas like travel and tourism consumption.

We hope that through these aspects, we will increase the income of credit card business and the related business. For the third-party payments, the income is also increasing. And in terms of the products and the settlement system and also the cash management system, we will continue to improve, to optimize in order to elevate the customer experience and consolidate our fundamental capability.

For the two improvements, we will first improve our wealth management capability. The other is our corporate financing service. For the wealth management, we know that there is high demand. So for the next step, we will continue to improve our consultancy and investments research capability, have a more precise customer profiling and based on that, we will customize the asset allocation policy to the customers based on their risk appetite.

And through that, we try to improve the fee income further. And for the corporate wealth management, we will also put forward some specified resolutions and try to meet their wealth management demands. Another is, we will also try to improve our financing service capability to the corporate customers. We know that this year marks the final year of the 14th 5-year plan and the starting of the 15th 5-year plan.

So the -- for the 15th 5-year plan, there were also some projects unfolding. President Zhao also mentioned that CCB is born with the mission of construction. So we should emphasize on these businesses. For example, for some incremental projects, we can provide the consultancy, consortium and the investment banking services. These can bring about new income.

The other is that for the inventory of the fund, we can -- we have a stable cash flow, so we can, through these aspects, bring about the new growth of the fee income. So thank you.

Thank you. We will have the question from Beijing. The lady from the third row.

I'm from [ Xinhua ] News Agency. We know that for the high-tech companies and the related companies are also developing rapidly. So what is the measures and policies CCB has put forward to support these high-tech companies?

Thank you for your question. I will answer this question. Just now the journalist from Taiping also mentioned that CCB has an advantage on fintech and digital economy, actually, we also have the preemptive advantage on technology finance. We're very happy to see that over the years, the high-tech companies and tech companies are booming rapidly. CCB, if you look at our history, I think many investors are very familiar with the CCB, the analysts, too.

If you look at the history of CCB, we emphasize on innovation. This is in our DNA. For example, in tech finance, the central government has put forward the policy to -- on the innovative -- innovation of the industry and finance. CCB is also among the first to establish the technology-related department, and we also have the innovation of related products and structures, especially from this year, our party secretary also attach high importance.

We convened the meeting. And we have this systematic action plan for the technology finance. And then the central government convened a meeting and mentioning that the technology innovation and industry innovation should be integrated in a deeper way. So we feel that CCB has seized the focuses. We made some preemptive arrangements already.

And for the positioning of our bank, we want to become the top choice. We will start from this position, try to do a good job in serving the technology finance. Our balance also reached CNY 5.15 trillion. The increment also reached CNY 741 billion. Now the percentage of technology loans is 18.78%, up by 1.7 percentage points. We have over 300,000 technology corporate customers. This is also leading in the whole industry.

We also have found the high-tech foundation with a scale of several hundred billion and we also have a 77 technology funds with a scale of over CNY 160 billion. And we also have the whole investment of over CNY 90 billion for the technology companies equity investment.

In technology companies in our financial services to them, the bank headquarters have identified very clear strategy. And secondly, we have built this customer ecosystem that supports both tech innovation and industrial innovation. On top of our prior experience, we will extend our services to research institutions and national laboratories, namely this fundamental research capabilities.

And on the other hand, our services will be extended to local industrial funds and venture capitalist, so we can pull everything together, financial capital, industrial and social capital, so we can form the national task force of patient capital. This is how we can lay a good foundation for supporting tech companies with commercial and investment banking.

In this way, we seized the opportunity of RSA, and we work with 18 provinces in collaborative projects and we work with NDRC, especially their special fund for major FIs. And to serve national strategic industries, we can mobilize billions, hundreds of billions of RMB of social capital, so we can build this customer ecosystem.

And secondly, we can build this integrated commercial and investment banking product mix that combines technologies and whole life cycle management of customers with our complete product portfolio, we can offer an integrated service package so we can offer equity loans for the tech startups, and we can offer collateralized loans for intellectual property if any of them have the demand for technology transfer.

So we can serve these companies in every phase of their lifetime. We have complete product portfolio and the information which is available online. And thirdly, we will build this ecosystem where we can have real-time interaction with our customers and the transaction can be carried out real-time as well.

On our website and our mobile banking app, customers can enjoy real-time interaction with the bank. And we have special sections on our website for financial services to tech companies so we can accurately identify customers to improve service efficiency. In this way, we can build this smart brain for technology finance in our bank.

By the end of June, Fei Chu Yijao saw over 340,000 customers, registered customers. We have 6,200 projects, and total funding approved was CNY 370 billion, and the successful matching ratio is 90%. So our tool has withstood the test of time and market, and we created this Huidongni mobile service platform for inclusive finance, so we can offer offline and online financial services.

And fourthly, CCB has created this huge network that covers 5 layers with the bank headquarters and outlets. For example, we have identified 405 outlets and banking branches that are specialized in technology and this outlet can cover all the areas where their tech companies are thriving.

And going forward, we will implement the instructions from the Party Central Committee, and we will contribute to our national initiative in building a strong technology powerhouse, so we can make our banks due contribution to that great effort.

Not long ago, we announced that -- and we also solicited -- we also received feedback from our investors. And this press conference is also live streamed, we have received comments from investors online as well. All your questions have been covered in the Q&A session.

Regarding questions related to real estate, we will select one of the questions to answer. The question goes, since the beginning of this year as the national policies stopped the decline in the proper market, your -- regarding your mortgage loans, how did it fare in supporting the real economy in terms of size, growth and interest rate? And how do you look at the outlook for housing loans for the whole year?

Mr. Ji will take the question.

Thank you for the question. Since the beginning of the year, the government has rolled out a series of policies to stop a housing price decline. Different cities have different measures and these measures have paid off. CCB is actively responding to these changes. We strengthened our differentiated approach to regional development supporting our customers in their demand, both as a first-time homebuyer and for housing update.

As Mr. Zhang puts it, in the first half, housing loans have increased remarkably compared with last year. We have seen stable outstanding loan amount. By the end of June, the outstanding loan balance for real estate was CNY 6.15 trillion, leading the industry.

Speaking of structure, some new changes in the real estate market have created better rooms for improvement. Since this year, secondhand houses have seen higher percentage in total transactions, we took advantage of this opportunity given that secondhand houses have different types and are distributed more evenly geographically.

We have extended our service outlets, so we can serve our customers at a higher efficiency to boost the development of secondhand house businesses. In the first half, loans to secondhand buying was leading the industry 20% year-on-year growth compared with last year. Newly added loans have seen CNY 43.6 billion of newly added loans to secondhand houses, outstanding bank loan balances to secondhand housing was CNY 1.89 trillion, the first in the industry.

We've also been involved in affordable housing. We offer loans to affordable housing as well. In 2024, we issued the first loan to affordable housing in Changzhou. And on the heels of that, we issued loans to affordable housing project in Dalian, Qingdao, Xial, Fuzhou and Guangzhou. In these new models, we have explored new service areas.

As you mentioned, speaking of interest rates, we have seen lower interest rates in mortgage loans. The first half saw 3.11%. Q2, it was 3.08%. So we have been playing this role of stabilizing our society and property market with financial services, and we took favorable measures to stop the decline of housing prices and Beijing and Shanghai governments have optimized their property policies to boost market expectation.

The Central Urban Work Conference strengthened the transformation of dilapidated houses and urban villages and this will lead to more demand for good houses. We will seize the opportunities of these favorable policies, so we can extend our financial services. We can help our customers in building this close loop of financial services for -- especially in housing loans, so we can continue to strengthen our capability in this area. We expect that the performance of housing finance will be better than this year.

Thank you, Mr. Ji. Today is Friday, we believe you have some other appointments and commitments in the evening. So we will close the Q&A session here. Thank you for your participation.

The management had frank, candid and professional communication on different topics. We hope that our presentation and answers can help you better understand our strategic initiatives, business performance and development of CCB.

If you have further questions, please feel free to get in touch with the Board office and our PR Department. In the end, I wish all the leaders, guests, analysts and investors and friends from press, I wish you good health, I wish you good business and I wish you a wonderful weekend. Thank you. This close the press conference today.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]