Continued Focus on Prudent Operation

Steady & Sound Development of All Lines of Business

22 August 2010, Hong Kong - China Construction Bank Corporation (”CCB” or “the Bank”) announced its 2010 interim results today. In the first half of this year, amid a host of economic and financial uncertainties both at home and abroad, CCB kept to a strategy of prudence and continued to maintain its sound operations stance. The development of its business was steady and coordinated, its basic management was solid and effective and the operating results it achieved were excellent.

New high in operating margin

As of 30 June, CCB’s total assets reached RMB10.235981 trillion (unless otherwise stated, the data hereinafter are calculated in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards on a consolidated basis and are reckoned in RMB), representing a growth of 6.37% over the end of last year. During the same period, gross loans and advances to customers grew 10.99% from last year end to RMB5.349382 trillion; deposits from customers grew 7.38% from the end of the previous year to RMB8.591701 trillion, with the loan-to-deposit ratio maintained at a reasonable level.

In the first half of the year, CCB realised an operating income of RMB153.725 billion or a growth of 16.93% over the same period last year. Its pre-tax profit and net profit were RMB92.194 billion and RMB70.779 billion, with rapid year-on-year growth of 27.22% and 26.75% respectively. In the same period, annualised return on average assets and annualised return on average equity were 1.43% and 24.00% respectively, both among the best figures for major commercial banks internationally. Continued strengthening of cost management and optimisation of its expenditure structure, CCB continued to improve cost efficiencies and keep its cost-to-income ratio to a low level --which showed a year-on-year decline of 1.49 percentage points to 33.64%.

Pronounced effects from credit structure adjustments

In the first half of 2010, CCB was conscientious in implementing national macroeconomic policies. In line with policies to change the country's mode of development and adjust industrial structures, CCB was active in implementing the credit policies of “entering into, guaranteeing, controlling, suppressing and remitting from” various industrial sectors. The Bank was equally vigorous in limiting loans to sectors with relatively high risk profiles to ensure that its credit extension was appropriately allocated, well adjusted in structure, reasonable in tempo and sound in quality. The balance of its corporate loans was RMB3.737338 trillion, an addition of RMB386.023 billion. Out of all corporate loans, infrastructure loans increased by 9.03% or RMB139.123 billion. Capital requirements for key construction projects, where the construction was proceeding or had been resumed under the State’s RMB4 trillion investment scheme, were given top priority. As extension of loans to government financing vehicles was severely restricted and requirements for valid security were strictly enforced, both the number of customers and the amount of loans in this area declined. Loans to real estate developers were put under “name list management”, resulting in the lowest amount over the last five years for new real estate development loans in the first half of the year. Meanwhile, the customer structure, regional structure and industry structure for lending became more rational.

The Bank continued to provide more credit support to small enterprises and livelihood areas. In 150 cities around the country, 177 small enterprise banking centres running a "credit-factory” model were set up. Vigorous efforts were also made to explore appropriate ways for cooperation between banks, government and enterprises. “Guarantee fund” based loan products for small enterprises were promoted. As a result, loans of more than RMB6 billion were issued, and the balance of our “e-Loan” series of online loan products was approaching RMB10 billion. Under the series of financial services using the “Minben Tongda” brand name to support the development of livelihood areas, loan balance issued to major livelihood domains, such as education and health care, amounted to RMB212.732 billion, a growth of 11.72% from the beginning of the year.

By actively meeting the demand for self-occupied home purchases and the gradual development of personal business loans and personal agribusiness loans, CCB ensured steady growth in its personal loan business. The balance of personal loans was RMB1.247708 trillion, up RMB159.249 billion from the end of last year or an increase of 14.63%. Of these, personal mortgage loans grew 17.56% to RMB1.002221 trillion, which were mainly issued to meet the demand for self-occupied home purchases. CCB’s entrusted housing finance business has also taken up a leading position in the industry. National housing policy was closely aligned and the balances of provident housing fund deposits and provident housing loans were RMB275.822 billion and RMB466.78 billion respectively, maintaining the Bank’s top market share position in both areas. 

Robust growth of intermediary business

Built on the foundation of reinforced traditional interest-generating business, CCB’s income structure has been improving steadily in recent years and its intermediary business has maintained rapid growth. In the first half of the year, a net fee and commission income of RMB33.642 billion or a year-on-year growth of RMB10.22 billion or 43.63% was achieved, maintaining the Bank’s leading position in the industry in terms of growth rate. As a share of operating income, this net fee and commission income has increased by 4.06 percentage points year-on-year to 21.88%, making CCB’s income structure more rational.

The competitiveness of a number of intermediary business products witnessed substantial growth in the period. CCB stayed at the top spot for PRC government bond underwriting while ranking No. 1 in terms of underwriting amount for short-term financing paper. The size of its custody and investment business broke through the RMB1 trillion mark to RMB1.082643 trillion and the Bank had the largest newly-increased market share in securities investment fund custody. CCB collaborated with approximately 150 futures companies and it signed-up nearly 500,000 accounts, which is among the highest in the industry. The market share of its agency insurance business was also among the best in the industry. The transaction volume of its customer-driven foreign exchange purchases and sales and foreign exchange trading reached US$143.7 billion, a year-on-year increase of 46%. The volume of its international settlement reached US$310.655 billion, an 59.52% growth over the same period last year. Through optimising business processes, enhancement of operation efficiency and active product innovation, the Bank achieved 197.18% growth in its wealth management business. In addition, its investment banking business developed rapidly, and there was steady growth in businesses such as financial advisory, mergers and acquisitions, debt financing instrument underwriting and industry funds.

CCB recorded sound development momentum in its bank card business. The total number of debit cards issued reached 281 million and spending via debit cards was RMB546.542 billion, soaring by 72.53% over the same period of the previous year. With continued increases in marketing efforts and resource inputs for credit cards, optimisation of the customer structure and enhancement of card-issuing quality, CCB achieved sustainable and steady growth in both customer spending and transactions through self-service facilities. A cumulative total of 26.38 million credit cards were issued and spending totalling RMB180.266 billion was recorded and its asset quality remained the best in the industry.

Further improvement in channel service

In the first half of the year, CCB launched a bankwide “Service Quality Year” campaign in connection with a “Serve the Expo” drive and implemented 12 specific service improvement programmes. The score of the service quality of its retail outlets as evaluated by third-party “mystery customers” was 92.8, an increase of 3.4 points from the same period last year. By means of business process optimisation, the Bank was able to effectively increase product sales, lower operating costs, raise its risk management level and improve the overall customer experience.

By further enriching channel building, CCB was able to enhance its market competitiveness. A star-classification management programme at the retail outlets was kick-started. This programme is an integrated assessment and ranking of the customer service capabilities and levels of retail outlets based on an overall consideration of their sales performance, customer service, physical environment and risk control. This served to reinforce the achievements of retail outlet transformation and contributed to the enhancement of customer service levels in the retail outlets. Currently, 37,487 sets of ATMs were installed and in operation. This was an increase of 4.07% over the end of last year and one of the highest numbers of ATM ownership in the world. A total of 131 wealth management centres and five private banking centres were in operation.

CCB’s e-banking business has been developing rapidly. Currently, the ratio of transaction volume through electronic banking compared to front desk banking has reached 120% and more and more customers are now enjoying high quality CCB e-banking services around the clock. The number of newly added personal online accounts was 8.54 million, which translates into a total of 48.13 million such accounts with a total transaction volume of RMB3.15 trillion. The number of newly added corporate online accounts for the period was 138,700 and the total number of such accounts now reached 827,600 with a total transaction volume of RMB25.65 trillion. There has also been a sizeable leap in the development of mobile phone banking services, with the number of accounts now reaching 17.59 million.

The Bank’s overseas development strategy and the establishment of rural banks have been forging ahead steadily. In April this year, a CCB branch was set up in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The Bank’s Sydney branch was also granted approval from the local regulatory authority in August and will soon open for business. Meanwhile, work in setting up a representative office in Moscow is also in full swing. Following the successful business registration of four rural banks, namely Anhui Fanchang Jianxin Rural Bank, Zhejiang Qingtian Jianxin Huaqiao Rural Bank, Zhejiang Wuyi Jianxin Rural Bank and Shaanxi Ansai Jianxin Rural Bank, there are now six rural banks set-up by CCB.

Solid and effective basic management

As part of its development strategy, CCB improved its policy formulating system, strengthened risk management in its weakest links, entrenched the employment of technical equipment and advanced fundamental work on market risk and operational risk in the first half of the year. As a result, there was an all-around enhancement in risk management capability. In compliance with regulatory requirements, probing investigations into key risk areas was conducted and risks were actively prevented and mitigated. By running a “Post-lending Management Year” campaign, post-lending management was comprehensively strengthened and the pace of disposing non-performing loans was increased, resulting in a continued and steady improvement in the quality of credit assets. The balance of non-performing loans was reduced to RMB65.168 billion, a decrease of RMB6.988 billion from the last year end. The non-performing loan ratio was down by 0.28 percentage points from last year end, to 1.22%. CCB achieved a decrease in both of these indexes.

In order to enhance its risk mitigation capabilities, CCB insisted on a balanced and steady charging of allowances for asset impairment losses. It managed to substantially raise allowances to non-performing loan ratio to 204.72%, an increase of 28.95 percentage points from the end of the previous year. This helped the Bank continue to keep the ratio at a relatively high level among domestic banks. During the same period, the capital adequacy level remained stable with capital adequacy ratio at 11.68%, while core capital adequacy ratio was 9.27%.

Infrastructure construction was intensified and resource allocation for information technology work on strategic projects was increased. This was a matter of focus to ensure the safe and steady operation of key systems and that the accessibility rate of key systems including core business processing system, online banking and credit cards would reach 100%. The capability of information technology in supporting product innovation and customer service was raised continuously. Through measures such as the optimisation of system structures and system framework, systems were integrated, their operational stability increased and cost inputs were lowered.  

All-out support of drought, quake, flood combats and disaster relief

In the first half of this year, CCB launched a number of public causes and charity campaigns and made donations of over RMB50 million. Specifically, CCB contributed RMB28.212 million, which included RMB7 million for drought combat and relief for the five southern provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangxi, Sichuan and Chongqing and RMB10 million for emergency rescue and post-disaster reconstruction work related to the Yushu earthquake in Qinghai Province. According to incomplete figures, voluntary donations from CCB personnel for the purpose of drought and earthquake combat and relief amounted to about RMB22.5 million in the first half of the year.

In view of widespread flood disasters now ravaging the country, especially the ultra-calamitous mud-slide in Zhouqu county of Gansu Province, CCB has donated RMB6.8 million in emergency aid to the disaster stricken areas. The first batch of RMB2.3 million in donations has already been transferred to the provinces of Jiangxi, Fujian, Hunan and Guangxi. The second batch will be dispatched in the next few days to the hard-stricken areas of Jilin, Shaanxi and Zhouqu county of Gansu Province, which are in dire needs of aid and assistance. In additional to monetary and material donations, all CCB employees are extending their hearts to the disaster areas and are doing their best to provide credit support and corresponding financial services to support self-help and post-disaster construction activities in these areas.

Since the beginning of this year, CCB has contributed RMB60 million to start up a “CCB Scholarships and Grants for College Students from Ethnic Minorities” programme in the central western region where there are large communities of ethnic minorities live. The goal is to sponsor needy college students in minority enclaves and the program plans to provide sponsorships for 20,000student-times. Currently, sixteen CCB branches are running this programme and have already begun assessment and issuing work for the first batch of scholarships. In addition, its “Build for the Future — CCB Sponsorship Programme for Impoverished High School Students” has been running successfully for three years and has extended assistance to poor high school students for 40,043 student-times with a total value of RMB60.0645 million in grants. The result has been extremely positive with 6,411 needy high school students matriculating successfully to colleges.

CCB’s operating and management performance has been fully recognised by various media and institutions. In the first half of the year, it was named “Best Bank in China” by FinanceAsia magazine, a renowned magazine in Asia. CCB was acknowledged as the “Bank with the Best Channels in China”, the “Best Trade Finance Provider, China” and the “Best Retail Bank in China” respectively by The Financial Times of the United Kingdom, Global Finance of the United States and Capital magazine of Hong Kong. It was also awarded the “China Red Cross Outstanding Contribution Medal” by the Red Cross Society of China. Moreover, CCB performed superbly in a number of major international rankings. In the ranking of "50 Best Chinese Brands 2010” announced by Forbes China magazine, CCB’s brand value is ranked third, the highest position for Chinese banks. In Fortune magazine’s “Top 50 Most Profitable Companies” as determined by profits, CCB is ranked 5th globally.