Ping An Bank earns US$1.939 billion net profit in first half

Thanks to its efforts to promote transformation toward intelligent retail banking, Shenzhen-headquartered Ping An Bank recorded net profit of 13.37 billion yuan (US$1.94) during the first six months of 2018, up by 6.5 percent year on year.

The joint stock commercial lender saw its revenue jump by 5.9 percent to 57.2 billion yuan in the first half, with the retail business contributing to 51.2 percent of overall revenue and 67.9 percent of its net profit, according to the bank’s latest interim report to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

As of the end of June, Ping An Bank has a total of 1.21 trillion yuan of assets under management from its retail customers, up by 12 percent from the end of last year, with the number of its retail clients surging by 10.2 percent to hit 77 million during the same period.

The outstanding performance also comes from improved asset quality, the report said, as the lender registered a fall of its non-performing loan ratio by 0.02 percentage points to stand at 1.68 percent from January to June.

Against the backdrop of consumption driving over three fourths of the country’s economic growth, Ping An Bank said that it has been making transformations of its business structures to ride on the trend by leveraging technological innovation and building diversified ecosystems.

“The momentum of such a transition is continuing to deliver solid results,” said Xie Yonglin, president of the bank, at a press conference held on Thursday in Shenzhen.

Xie noted that they will go on to dig deep into the comprehensive finance strategy while pursuing more technological enablers and teaming up with more players within scenario-based ecosystems.