Industrial Bank Remained Among the Top 50, further Raising its World Ranking in Total Assets and Tier 1 Capital

The 2014 list of “Top 1000 World Banks” was released by the British magazine, The Banker, an international authoritative financial magazine, on June 30. In the list, IB continued moving up steadily, rising to the 43th place by 7 positions over the last year in terms of total assets, and the 49th place by 6 positions in terms of Tier 1 capital. It remained securely among the global top 50 banks.

Behind the steady rise in the ranking of overall strength are the active efforts that IB has made to follow the changes in China’s economic situation, grasp market opportunities, adhere to the differentiated business strategies, and keep pushing business transformation, reform of business line specialization, and group-based operation. By the end of 2013, the total assets of IB reached RMB 3,677.435 billion, increasing RMB 426.460 over the beginning of the year, up by 13.12%; and the Tier 1 capital reached RMB 201.153 billion, increasing RMB 30.681 billion, up by 18% over the beginning of this year. With a number of subsidiaries under its sole investment or controlling by shares, which engage in trust, lease, fund and assets management, now IB has grown into a modern financial service group focusing on the principal banking businesses and covering trust, lease, fund, and assets management, and has made its presence in Global 500.

In the list of this year, Chinese banking industry has an outstanding performance, accounting for 1/5 of the Global Top 50 Banks. Specifically, ICBC, CCB, BOC and ABC made their presence in the top 10. The Chinese banking industry moved up in the list on the whole, which is also a manifestation for the improvement of overall strength and risk resistance of Chinese banking industry.

China Banking Association (CBA) also released the Report on the Development of the Chinese Banking Industry (2014) on the same day, which shows that, in 2013, the Chinese banking industry witnessed steady growth in overall asset-liabilities scale and kept stable profitability, capital sufficiency and asset quality. Taking the asset business as an example, Yang Zaiping, vice president (full time) of CBA pointed out that the assets of Chinese banking industry increased from RMB 62.4 trillion in 2008 to RMB 151.4 trillion in 2013, of which the credit assets increased from RMB 32 trillion to RMB 71.9 trillion, more than doubled within five years. This is a distinctive contrast to the contraction of deleveraged credit in Europe and America after the global financial crisis. Yang also said on the other side of banking assets stood the liabilities of real economy, and this exhibited the vigorous support of the banking industry to the real economy.

Although the Chinese banks made eye-catching performance in the banking related list around the globe in recent years, this does not mean that the Chinese banking industry which is under transformation now has no pressure in growth. Brian Caplen, Editor-in-Chief of The Banker, believed, “the great trial for the Chinese banking industry is how to respond to the slowdown of economic growth in China in the coming years".