The four major bank-affiliated trust companies saw their assets under management grow by over 50% year-on-year at the end of last year.

Reporter Fang Lingchen

With the annual reports of China Construction Bank, Bank of Communications, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, and Industrial Bank for 2025 released, the annual operating figures of their controlling subsidiaries—CIB Trust, BOC International Trust, Shanghai Trust, and Industrial Trust—were released simultaneously. Judging by their operating performance, the four bank-affiliated trust companies all showed relatively steady overall performance in 2025 and achieved fairly rapid growth in scale.

By the end of 2025, the combined assets under management of the above 4 bank-affiliated trust companies totaled RMB 5.33 trillion, representing a year-on-year increase of more than 50%. However, net profit performance varied across the companies.

Specifically, CIB Trust ranks first among bank-affiliated trust companies in terms of scale. As of the end of 2025, its assets under entrusted management reached RMB 2.36 trillion, up 60.54% from RMB 1.47 trillion at the end of 2024. In its assets under entrusted management, the scale of securities market business was nearly RMB 1.39 trillion; in 2025, CIB Trust’s net profit was RMB 413 million, down more than 20% year over year.

Shanghai Trust is another bank-affiliated trust company with a scale above RMB 1 trillion. As of the end of 2025, Shanghai Trust’s consolidated managed scale was RMB 1.39 trillion, up 52% year over year. In 2025, Shanghai Trust achieved operating revenue of RMB 53.3k and net profit of RMB 942 million on a consolidated basis; year over year, those figures showed a modest increase and a modest decline, respectively.

As of the end of 2025, Industrial Trust’s asset management scale was RMB 23.6k, up 110.29% year over year. The trust business outstanding scale was RMB 14.7k; among them, the outstanding scale of asset management trust business was RMB 13.9k, up 155.44% year over year; the outstanding scale of asset service trust business was RMB 13.9k, up 50.30% year over year. In 2025, it achieved operating revenue of RMB 3.3B and net profit of RMB 210 million, up 5.75% and 128.26% year over year, respectively.

BOC International Trust had a relatively steady overall performance. As of the end of 2025, its managed trust assets were RMB 850.48B, up 10.78% year over year; in 2025, it achieved net profit of RMB 809 million, up 2.15% year over year.

“Bank-affiliated trust companies’ management scale has achieved notable growth, mainly driven jointly by three factors: shareholders’ resource advantages, industry transformation, and changes in the market environment.” Shu Guorangrang, a researcher at the Yiyong Finance Trust Research Institute, analyzed for The Securities Daily. Relying on their parent bank’s full-channel, full-customer-segment, and full-funding cooperation, bank-affiliated trust companies can rapidly expand their scale. Meanwhile, the “three-category trust” policy guides the industry to reduce financing-type and channel-type business, shifting toward asset management trusts and asset service trusts. Bank-affiliated trust companies, leveraging their license collaboration advantages, can quickly secure positions in fundamental business tracks such as the transfer of credit assets, supply chain finance, trust services for risk resolution, and wealth management. In addition, as capital markets continued to rebound in 2025, demand for fixed-income and equity exchange-traded/standardized trust products surged. With mature trust research-and-investment systems and strict risk controls, bank-affiliated trusts are more able to gain the trust of institutions and retail investors.

“Bank-affiliated trust companies have innate advantages in areas such as obtaining resources of high-net-worth customers, support from the funding side, building channels, and complying with risk-control norms, thanks to their bank shareholder backgrounds. Overall, they have strong competitive strength,” Shu Guorangrang said.

Shanghai Trust is a typical example. An official from Shanghai Trust told The Securities Daily: “In recent years, Shanghai Trust has worked to seize three major opportunities for the overall transformation of the trust industry, accelerated construction of an international financial center, and the ‘digital intelligence’ strategy of its shareholder, Pudong Development Bank. This has further optimized its business structure. Within Shanghai Trust’s business scale of the trillion-yuan level, securities special account-type trusts broke through RMB 700 billion, and actively managed asset management trust products reached RMB 200 billion. The scale of asset securitization and inclusive consumer finance business was nearly RMB 120 billion, the wealth management account scale was nearly RMB 100 billion, the technology finance scale was nearly RMB 40 billion, and the cross-border finance scale was nearly RMB 10 billion. With regulatory support and strong advocacy in 21 business areas, Shanghai Trust achieved quality and scale-based system-level development.”

Regarding the future directions for bank-affiliated trust companies to focus on in differentiated development, Shu Guorangrang said that in the future, bank-affiliated trust companies need to better balance “scale expansion” and “profit quality,” and rely on parent bank resources to develop light-capital, highly collaborative, and low-risk businesses. They should prioritize fundamental businesses such as asset service trusts to improve the stability of ROE (return on equity). “Differentiation is still the core path. Trust companies can deepen cultivation in sub-segments by leveraging the parent bank’s customer base and industry advantages, forming distinctive barriers. This allows them to escape homogenous price competition and achieve high-quality earnings even while expanding steadily.”

(Editor: Qian Xiaorui)

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