China’s finance sector was once freewheeling, but new regulations and mandates from officials suggest banks’ new role looks beyond simple profit-seeking.

Results came despite government calls to slash rates and inject liquidity into the country’s slumping property sector.

Leading Chinese banks have injected billions of yuan into housing projects with the aim of financing the completion of pre-sold but yet-to-be-completed homes across the country.

The bank will be the nation’s first big state bank to sell loss-absorbing bonds to plug a major funding shortfall before a 2025 deadline to meet global capital requirements

China’s largest state-owned banks are lowering their deposit rates for the third time in 2023, in their latest effort to ease the pressure on their net interest margins and to improve profitability.

A Post review of midyear financial reports by 18 ‘systemically important’ banks in China finds that more than two-thirds have higher outstanding non-performing property loans.

Banks will cut rates on 16 trillion yuan (US$2.2 trillion) of existing first-home loans, helping households save up to 109 billion yuan in interest, ANZ says. The cut will have a tangible impact on profit margins.

One of China’s biggest banks has issued a warning about slimmer net interest margins even as it reported a higher-than-expected interim profit, as the world’s second-largest economy grapples with slowing growth and a property crisis.

Analysts say Pan Gongsheng’s many years of experience at the People’s Bank of China give him a critically important vantage point from which to tackle financial risks and shore up economic growth.

The Securities Times, owned by the People’s Daily, pushed back against a report by Goldman Sachs that prompted a sell-off of some of the nation’s major state-backed banks.

Investors have been snapping up Chinese banking stocks at a pace not seen since the 2015 market bubble in the hopes that lenders’ profit growth will accelerate and government-led drives to boost valuations and improve efficiency at SOEs will underpin sentiment.

China’s megabanks are planning at least 40 billion yuan (US$5.8 billion) of bond sales, kicking off a major funding push to comply with global capital requirements by early 2025.

The 62-year-old was abruptly removed from his post as chairman and party chief at the leading state-owned lender in February.

After the PBOC and the CBIRC officially confirmed a 16-point rescue plan for the real estate sector on Wednesday, banks have been rushing to offer financing support for several struggling companies.

ICBC, the world’s largest bank by assets, sees more challenges ahead in staving off the impact of China’s strict zero-Covid measures on its loan quality.

China’s US$52 trillion banking industry is being closely scrutinised by investors as the country’s rolling Covid-19 lockdowns and a deepening property crisis is slowing economic growth.

Struggling to find enough clients, banks have been swapping bills with each other just so they can meet regulatory requirements for corporate lending.

Chinese state-owned banks are likely to deliver single-digital growth in first-quarter net profits when they report their results on Friday, but the outlook for the rest of the year is less clear.

Dividend payments by onshore Chinese companies likely to exceed 1 trillion yuan for financial year 2021 for the first time, according to S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Leading state-controlled banks are likely to report earnings growth of between 8 and 15 per cent for 2021, according to analysts’ estimates.

Chinese banks exited the third quarter with marginal improvement in bad loan ratios. Lending to developers may still become troublesome as Evergrande and distressed peers struggle to repay.

HKMA allows 16 banks to sell products in Hong Kong and the mainland, while three can only sell to Greater Bay Area residents via the southbound route.

Ping An Insurance joined the list of top 10 most admired companies for the first time in a ranking based on public perception. Dutch semiconductor equipment maker ASML knocked Apple off its perch.

Analysts expect Chinese lenders to post an average 23 per cent profit growth for the second quarter, as the economic rebound from Covid-19 has eased the burden of soured loan provisions.

Contingency planning has been a requirement for China’s biggest financial institutions for a decade now.

China’s banking regulator has warned the country’s smaller banks against rushing to grow their property sector loans after a cap on lending by big banks to the highly leveraged industry showed some initial success.

Chinese authorities, anxious to maintain social stability during the centenary year of the ruling Communist Party, are rushing to keep the lid on housing prices and other political hot button issues. Last month, China’s home prices soared by 0.5 per cent across 70 cities tracked by the statistics bureau, at a pace that exceeded the previous month.

Top Chinese banks report first-quarter profit growth in line with analysts’ expectations while exceeding the mainland’s industry average of a 1.5 per cent profit increase.

China’s US$13.6 billion National Green Development Fund takes a step closer towards deploying capital to fund climate-friendly projects.