Lender caters to demand for investment products as it seeks to boost fee income
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, which completed the world's largest initial public offering recently, said it sold 59.9 billion yuan of wealth management products in the first 10 months of this year, thanks to the launch of new products and rising demand.
The lender also said yesterday it had more than 60 billion yuan of assets under management at the end of last month, excluding government bonds and insurance products sold. It did not provide comparative figures for last year.
As most of ICBC's wealth management products are short-term with maturity of less than a year, the amount of assets it manages is similar to its total sales in the first 10 months.
'The bank is trying to increase its fee income from wealth management services,' said Guotai Junan Securities analyst Wu Yonggang.
Wealth management is part of ICBC's plan to channel its deposits into fee-based products so that it can cut interest expense and boost income.
Its revenue from wealth management last year was 1.9 billion yuan, a fraction of its 12.4 billion yuan total fee and commission income.