Industrial & Com Unsp/Adr

Dear investors and analysts, good afternoon. I'm Wang Liancheng from corporate strategy and IR department of ICBC. Welcome to ICBC 2024 interim results announcement. This conference is broadcast online We are also happy to have some of the investors and analysts with us in person. I'd like to introduce to you the senior management members joining today. President Mr. Liu Jun. Senior Executive Vice President Mr. Wang Jingwu. SEVP Mr. Zhang Weiwu. SEVP, Mr. Duan Hongtao. SEVP, Mr. Zhang Shouchuan. Our directors, Herbert Walter and Muri Horn, participate this meeting in person. Our directors, Lu Yongzhen, Feng Wei, Dong Cao, Li Qun, Chen Yifang, Dong Yang, and Shen Si participate online. We also have general managers from the departments and subsidiaries here with us. Next, I'll give the floor to SEVP and Board Secretary Mr. Duan Hongtao to brief you on ICBC's interim results. And the main features. Dear investors and analysts, good evening. In the first half of 2024, with complex external environment, we pursued progress while ensuring stability, advanced the five transformations of intelligent risk control, modern layout, digital driver, diversified structure, and ecological foundation. and promoted its own high-quality development with serving economic recovery. Our main performance indicators maintained stable and operating results grew steadily with improved quality. It's demonstrated in the following three aspects. First, maintaining stable operation and demonstrating operating and development resilience. Core performance indicators were stable, the market leading position. By the end of half year, total assets were more than 47 trillion RMB, continuing to lead the world. Loans to customers recorded nearly 28 trillion, up by 1.8 trillion over the end of last year. Due to customers was more than 34 trillion, up by over 580 billion. Sound performance, operating income was 402 billion and net profit 171.3 billion, maintaining at the leading level among domestic banks. ROA and ROE were 0.75% and 9.53% respectively. remaining at a reasonable level. Neem was 1.43%. Cost-to-income ratio was 24.79%, maintaining stable foundation of operation. Capital adequacy ratio was 19.16%, maintaining the forefront among major banks around the world. NPL ratio was 1.35%. Allowance to NPLs was 218.43%. In 2023, the dividend totaled 109.2 billion RMB, continuing to have the highest cash dividend among A share listed companies. Based on the average share price of half one year, dividend yields for A and H share are 5.79% and 7.97% respectively. This year, we actively promote interim dividend, planning to pay 51.1 billion RMB in the next January. so as to provide stable and sustainable returns for shareholders. Second, assets and liabilities growing steadily and the quality and efficiency of services for the real economy improved. In half one year, assets grew steadily. The balance of loans to customers increased by 6.7% over the end of last year, and the balance of bond investments increased by 9.8%. Deposits saw solid growth, of which personal deposits increased by 5.8%. The deposit deviation was improved, was the lowest in the corresponding period in the last five years. Continuously optimizing the credit structure and taking solid steps to boost five priorities. Corporate loans increased by 1.37 trillion, which were more targeted. The bank actively accelerated the transformation of the retail business by raising the proportion of retail-inclusive loans, personal business loans, and personal consumption loans, maintaining high growth. We actively served the five priorities. Loans to strategic emerging industries balance was $3.1 trillion, up by 15%. Loans to sci-tech enterprises, 2.1 trillion, up by 19%. Green credit was over 6 trillion, up by 14%. Inclusive loans, over 2.7 trillion, up by 22%. Pensions under management, 4.5 trillion, up by 8%. loans to core industries of the digital economy totaled $911.1 billion up by 16%. Third, deepening operation transformation and innovation and enhancing drivers of high-quality development. For half one year, we accelerated reform and improved the transformation framework, deepened the transformation contents, and upgraded the transformation measures and work to realize effective improvement in quality. Pillar businesses continue to strengthen. Corporate banking. Corporate loans totaled 17.5 trillion RMB. Corporate customers numbered 12.85 million. Loans to manufacturing exceeded 4 trillion. All leading peers. Personal banking. Personal AUM totaled $21.8 trillion. The number of private banking customers, the total amount and increment of AUM, the number of personal bank accounts opened, and the total amount of contributions all led the industry. Institutional banking, institutional deposits was $8.4 trillion leading the industry. We received a Double excellence rating the evaluation of centralized payment agents organized by the Ministry of Finance for the sixth consecutive year. Market business AUM exceeded 30 trillion. Domestic assets under custody recorded 24.5 trillion. We let the industry in bond investments underwriting foreign exchange trading on behalf of customers market making. Making new progress in the development of DICBC, ICBC continue to improve three external and three internal platforms, strengthen the two supporting systems of business and data, accelerate the digitalization and intellectualization by serving customers and empowering our own employees. For the external platforms, MAUs of mobile banking exceeded 230 million. MAUs of ICBC eLife were over 17.4 million. Trading volume of open banking over 200 trillion, improving customer experience. Continuing to optimize the customer ecosystem and implementing GBC Plus projects in depth, we accelerated the integration of four chains, fund, customer, service, and value chains, strengthening the customer base. Personal customers totaled almost 750 million, up by 9 million over the end of last year. Mobile banking customers totaled over 460 million, up by 12 million, leading the industry. Asset quality maintaining stable and the quality and efficiency of enterprise risk management enhanced. ICBC continues to enhance enterprise-wide risk management system and mega-risk coordination and improve risk officer mechanism, accelerate risk control intellectualization. All risks are controllable, asset quality stable. By the end of June, group-wide MPL ratio was 1.35%, down by 1B over the beginning of this year. Credit cost was 0.7%, maintaining a sound level. Risks in key areas were effectively addressed. Real estate NPR ratio continued to decline, supporting local governments in preventing and resolving debt risks based on law and market rules. For small and medium-sized banks, we provided technical and professional support. Dynamically integrating the ESG concept into operation development, we further strengthen the ESG governance structure, continue to build a three-in-one ESG information disclosure system. ICBC's MSCI rating was AA, leading domestic peers. Looking ahead to the second half of 2024, ICBC will remain committed to the path of financial development with Chinese characteristics, focus on enhanced advance in five transformations and strive to achieve a dynamic balance of value creation, market position, risk control, and capital constraints. The bank will embark on the new journey for ICBC after its 40th anniversary with achievements in high-quality development and deliver stable and sustained returns to shareholders from home and abroad.

Thank you. Now is the Q&A session. Please state your name and organization before asking the first question from the side. Thank you for the opportunity to raise the first question. I'm from UBS. I would like to ask a question about the income and net profit. In the first half of the year, we have seen the entire banking sector still face pressure of income, and that income of ICBC has also decreased by 2%. So what measures have you taken, where you take to stabilize operating income and profits in the second half of the year? Thank you for your question. In the first half of 2024, ICBC achieved a net profit of 171.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 2%, as you mentioned in your question. This is in line with the overall trend of the domestic banking industry because we have a large sum, but we think this deviation is still within our expectation. And also the interium dividend payout is also a good demonstration of responsible listed company for ICBC, which is also our goal to pay sustainable return to our investors. The first half of the year, the decline of our net profit is highly relevant with the macro interest rate environment and also the current stage. And this is also a situation currently facing the entire sector. So for the whole year, although we still have pressure in terms of operating income and net interest margin, we have seen some positive changes, and it will provide strong support for stabilizing annual net profit. First, deposit interest rate declined compared with the beginning of this year, and the stability in deposit growth significantly improved, benefiting from multiple reductions in deposit benchmark interest rate. The deposit cost decreased. Now, in the first half, it's 1.84%, down by 5 bps compared to last year. And by the end of July, we lowered our deposit band 5 to 20 bps, so which will further drive our decline in terms of our deposit costs in the second half of this year. So in the first half, we have seen very high quality deposit growth. The deviation of our deposit is 2.2%, the lowest in nearly five years. At the same time, we have also optimized the deposit structure. and the deposit reliability with lower cost has increased proportion. Secondly, our asset structure continues to optimize. In the low interest rate environment, we have continuously strengthened the adjustment of the asset structure and focused on the high-quality development to serve the real economy. Efforts were made to stabilize the yield margin. In the first half of the year, The loans and bond investments which have higher years increased by 0.7% each points and 1.1% each points respectively. In the first half of the year, the yield on interest-bearing assets decreased by five-fifths, a smaller decline than that in the first quarter. Further, the more diversified income sources, steady improvement in operating income contribution. Based on the mean contraction, we have realized a net fee income of 67.4 billion yuan, with the total amount remaining the highest in the industry domestically. So with the efforts above mentioned, the compression of our net interest margin has been slowed. This can demonstrate the resilience of ICBC. And among our fee income, our income from the investment banking syndicate Sport forex trade and the RMB corporate settlement has witnessed a very good growth. And we have also seized the chance to realize other non-interest income, which totaled $20.6 billion, increased by 12%. So we have made achievement in this regard in the first half of the year, and we will continue to do so in the second half. Fourthly, the stable asset quality continues enhancement of risk resistance capability. By the end of June, the NPR ratio of SBC was 1.35%, 0.01 percentage point lower than Q1 and last year. And the provision coverage ratio is 218.4%, up by 4.5 percentage points. Total provision balance was 954.2 billion, increased by 17%. is $819.9 billion increased by $63.5 billion. So as you can see the loan provision ratio is up and all those index can show ICBC has played our due part in terms of the leading role to provide support to the real economy. In the second half of the year, we will continue to deepen structure transformation, effectively prevent and control risks, strengthen asset liabilities, promote operating income, and push forward reforms. by actively adapting to the interest rate informalists strive to serve the high quality development of the real economy and also create long-term stable value returns for shareholders. Firstly, Implement multiple measures to stabilize the interest margin and strive to narrow the decline in the net interest income. On the asset side, continue to take proactive steps to excel in the five key financial areas. Supporting the development of new quality productivity has strengthened the credit supply capacity to the key strategies, key areas, and weak links, while maintaining a leading advantage in manufacturing, emerging industries, green finance, and private enterprises. accelerate the increase in the proportion of return inclusive loans on the liability side aimed to Close the funding loop, continues to promote the GBC Plus foundational projects, focus on the source and the flow of funds, strive to increase the retention of low-cost settlement funds, focus on key scenarios of strengthen the competition for current funds, embed duration management into the entire deposit management process, promote a healthy interaction between savings and AUM, also reduce the proportion of high-cost liabilities. and ensure a stable yet gradual decrease in the deposit rate. Secondly, accelerate the transformation of financial services. Improve new infrastructure services such as clearing, settlement, payment, and custody. Deeply dive into the growth potential of the four new business areas, investment banking, asset management, wealth management, and financial trading. Using the value ecosystem chain of investment banking, asset management, wealth management, financial trading to invigorate the traditional balance sheet and provide more effective support for revenue growth. Incorporate business flexibly use the combination of commercial and investment banking products to create a comprehensive service ecosystem, promote revenue growth in investment banking syndication custody and bond underwriting through customer sharing and business synergy. improve the construction of payment settlement and consumption scenarios, and promote revenue growth in credit cards, third-party payments, and RMB settlement products in wealth management, enrich the product portfolio based on market rotations to meet customers' drivers' needs for financial asset preservation and appreciation, further stimulating the growth potential of businesses like fund distribution, wealth management distribution, and precious metals. Thirdly, asset quality will continue to enhance our risk control and also seize the opportunity of some positive signals we have seen to better control the cost. On one hand, we will continue to enhance our risk control and to ensure the overall asset quality stable momentum. And on the second, we will also continue to enhance our treatment and disposal of non-performing loans so as to create a more coordinated new balance between income and expenditure. Thank you.

The next question. Thank you for the opportunity. I'm from Guoxin Securities. My question concerns low growth. Recently, we have observed that big banks seem to face loan growth decline. Would you please, from scale, mix, and pricing, brief us with the half-one-year situation? And also, regulators have changed their wording about scale. So do you plan to reduce your loan growth plan for full year? I'll invite Mr. Zhang Shouchuan to answer the question. For half one year situation, we follow the macro policies, coordinate, pace, strength, focus of investment and financing, accelerate rejuvenation of outstanding fund, and promote the transformation and upgrading of loan mix. In serving the real economy in its recovery, we have played the role of major force and anchor. First, scale and outstanding both lead the peers. The domestic RMB loans balance was over 26 trillion, up by 1.74 trillion, achieving a continuous growth on the high base. Second, loan growth was more targeted. the domestic branches' corporate loans was up by 1.4 trillion, of which the medium and long-term proportion was 72%, up by 3 percentage points year on year. We increased our support for five priorities, two majors to new manufacturing, food, energy, resources, security, The strategic emerging industries loans balance was over $3 trillion, manufacturing over $4 trillion, grain loans over $6 trillion. specialized in new loans, inclusive finance, agricultural loans, where both grew by over 10%. We follow the policies about real estate market high-quality development and support financing coordination mechanism for urban real estate market, help the stable and healthy development of the property market, Third, the momentum continues to pick up. We actively satisfy the people's consumption need. The domestic non-mortgage loans was over by 300 billion a year on year growth. We adapt to the economic transformation and upgrading The re-lending of the loans to rejuvenate the outstanding loans was over $2 trillion, increasing the effectiveness of fund allocation force. The pace of growth was balanced. The daily average of increment of RMB loans was over $2.1 trillion, up by 9%. We crossed the year and quarter and achieved stable growth. For the second half of the year, the Chinese economy operates stably and making progress, continue the recovery. So the robust monetary policy is focused on steering commercial banks to keep a reasonable growth and balanced growth of loans. So for the future of the Chinese economy and for our own high quality development, we are fully confident. In the second half of the year, we will continue to implement macro policies and promote the stable and reasonable growth of loans And according to market changes, we will steer the goals of loan growth, maintain our competitive edge, improve our capability of serving the real economy, and continue the leading position. First, we will continue to focus on serving the major strategies and high-quality customers. We will use the group's comprehensive financial strategy advantage to support the major strategies fields and weak links when enhancing the foundation we will create new growth point We will do good in ensuring timely delivery and guaranteed housing to help the new mode of real estate market. We will reasonably enhance our support for medium and long-term loans to the major real projects second we will continue to provide higher quality and more diversified retail finance services we will continue our support for personal consumption personal business loans and credit card and other retail and inclusive loans and increase their proportion in the loan mix We will adjust the loan mix about mortgage loans in the second-hand houses. Third, we will continue to optimize the mix of the credit resources for the high-quality assets. We will continue to strengthen our NPL disposal and coordinate the development among regions and increase the coordination between loan growth and economic development of the regions. Thank you.

Thank you. Today, we also are joined by many analysts and investors online. So next question from online. Thank you for the opportunity to raise the question. I'm Richard from Morgan Stanley. My question concerns about the asset quality. Due to the volatility of the macroeconomic, the overall asset quality of SBC maintained a stable level. Looking forward, we still face pressure of further slowdown of the macroeconomic. So what's your view on your current asset quality level and what key areas do you think needs further we all pay a lot of attention to the risk in the real estate sector. So what's your view in this regard? Thank you. I'll invite Mr. Wang Jingwu to answer this question. Thank you for your question about the asset quality in the first half of 2024. ICBC strike a balance between high quality development and high level security. We focus on the main themes of risk prevention, compliance enhancement, and development promotion. We have tightly managed the credit risk across the entire scope and cycle. Risks in key areas have been resolved in an orderly manner, and the quality of credit assets has remained stable and controllable. As of the end of June 2024, SBC's NPR ratio stood at 1.35, a decrease of one basis point from the end of the previous year. From a business segment perspective, the asset quality in the corporate sector has continued to improve. The overall NPR ratio for domestic branch corporate loans was 1.63%, down by 14 bps compared to the end of last year. The NPR ratio for all major industries have also seen varied degrees of decline since the beginning of the year. with notable reductions of 40 bps in the manufacturing and wholesale and retail industry, while the MPI ratio in the retail segment has increased due to the slowdown of economic growth and income household, but the overall asset quality remains at a relatively good level. In accordance with early prevention principle, we are taking multiple measures to enhance smart risk control, recovery mechanism and disposal of MPLs. In terms of the risk in the real estate sector, we have long adhered to a prudent and cautious business philosophy following the three-in-one asset selection criteria that consider region, customer, and project. We focus on building a diversified, multifaceted, and balanced real estate investment financing structure, reasonably controlling the proportion of real estate in the total loan portfolio, and strictly managing the proportion of loans to individual real estate companies. In response to the new characteristics and situations that have emerged in the real estate sector in recent years, ICPC has adopted a comprehensive approach focusing on increasing, preventing, mitigating, and managing risks by optimizing new investment strategies. and helping to establish new development models for the commercial real estate sector, effectively managing existing assets, increasing efforts to resolve and clear risks associated with high-risk enterprises and projects. As of the end of June, the balance of corporate loans of our developer loans The domestic developer loans, the balance is $852.1 billion, only accounting to 3% of the total loans, and the ratio of the developer loans was down by two bips. Overall, accessibility of our developer loans was quite stable. Additionally, sufficient provisions have been made for risk loans to fully cover potential losses and risks. Looking ahead, In the second half of this year, we will continue to adhere to the goal of stable development, strengthen the security development line, and act as a stabilizing force in maintaining financial stability and leveraging higher-level risk management to support high-quality development. We will enhance management empowerment, continue to strengthen the bank-wide risk control system, optimize policy support, accurately manage key area loan placements, and improve asset allocation capabilities. Additionally, we will deepen digital and intelligent empowerment, continuously advance the construction of an enterprise-level intelligent risk control platform, utilize its early warning capabilities for practical application, achieving forward-looking and precise risk management.

The next question is from online. Thank you for the opportunity to raise question. I'm Liu Yue from HSBC. I have a question regarding capital and dividend. We have noticed that ICBC has relatively high capital adequacy ratio Do you have any capital plans in the future? Now the sector is facing the need compression pressure. How do you balance the relationship between capital adequacy, assets growth, and dividend stability? And how do you create sustainable returns for shareholders? I'll invite SEVP Mr. Duan Hongtao to answer the question. At present, ICBC's capital is well managed. The capital plan is orderly implemented. In the first half of the year, our principle is internal, external, and balanced. We actively promote commercial banks' capital management guidelines implementation. We use retained earnings as the main channel to replenish capital. We optimize capital management and increase capital efficiency. At the end of second quarter, ICBC's par was 19.16%. CET1 and Tier 1 capital adequacy ratio were 13.84% and 15.25% respectively. maintaining a reasonable and robust range. In serving the real economy, strengthening risk resilience, we lay a solid foundation. First, we enhance internal capital accumulation. Our profit for the first half of the year was $171.3 billion, deducted dividend and equity towards interest, we have retained earnings of 56.6 billion. We have been maintaining a robust profitability. We provide good returns for shareholders and investors and also achieve self-replenishment of capital. Second, we orderly implement external capital replenishment. In first half of the year, ICBC's 370 billion capital tools issuance plan was approved by the regulator. We look into the asset development and market interest rates development trend. We already completed 50 billion perpetual bond and 50 billion tier two capital bond issuance by the end of August. We implement maturity replacement of the outstanding tools. So the whole interest payment cost was reduced by 26 BP. Third, we actively implemented new rules requirement. this year we have seen the taking place of capital guidelines in capital allocation capital measurement and risk restraint there are new rules so we prioritize the capital extension to key areas the rm the rwa growth was lower than that of total assets saving capital occupation, achieving stable transition between old and new rules. Fourth, we actively participated in TLAC tools innovation. In first half of the year, guided by regulators and shareholders, we implemented the issuance of 40 billion TLAC non-capital tools, the first in domestic market receiving high recognition from the market. As GSIB, we have been a model for the peers and provided a new and high-quality investment targets for the market. We also raised questions about net interest margin pressure. The NIEM change was changed, was influenced by macro economies and industries environment. The changes of NIEM for ICBC is similar to other peers. Compared with the last terms data, we have seen some marginal improvement. We pay high attention to NIEM management in low interest rate environment. we adjusted asset and liabilities allocation, optimized large assets allocation, and stabilized net interest margin. First, we optimized loan mix and make targeted pricing. In first half of the year, the new RMB loans interest rate was increased by 4B compared with Fourth quarter last year, the interest rate change was similar to the sector. Second, the deposit interest payment ratio was reduced. There are multiple positive interest factors in this regard. In first half of the year, the new deposits interest rate was reduced by 29 BP than last year. outstanding level among the peers. In future, we will coordinate assets and liabilities, promote four transformations, and promote net interest margin to maintain in a relatively reasonable range. Recently, we are actively implementing interim dividend Considering that our capital was adequate, interim dividend would not bring remarkable pressure to our capital adequacy ratio. With the dividend payout ratio unchanged, we reasonably increase the frequency of dividend is good for smoothening the capital adequacy ratios change. In the future, we will continue to coordinate the reasonable growth of quantity, refine management of pricing, effective improvement of quality, and targeted control of risks and to construct a triangular of efficiency among capital assets and funds so as to create a clean and healthy balance sheet and a balanced and coordinated and sustainable income sheet and increase our sustainable development capability. Thank you.

We have this publicly solicited question from investors, and all those questions mainly focus on dividend payout, and just now Mr. Zhang answered this question. So next, last question, please. I'm from CDIC. I would like to ask a question about financial market investment. In the presentation at the beginning of this year, we have seen ICBC's bond investment has realized a remarkable income. So could you provide more details of ICBC's bond investment performance and what are your future plans for expanding the bond business? I would like to invite Mr. Zhang Weiwu to answer this question. Thank you for your question. At the end of the June 2024, as its bond investment balance had increased by 9.8% compared to the end of last year, with a balance of RMB bond investment growing by 10.4%. While maintaining a strong focus on government bond investment and ensuring a market-leading scale in key categories such as local government bonds, ICBC has optimized the structure of credit bond investment around the five key financial areas, From January to June, the growth rate of new RMB corporate bond investment in key areas such as advanced manufacturing, technological innovation, and green environmental protection exceeded 60% year-on-year. Additionally, SBC has actively provided quotation and market-making services to both domestic and foreign investors, striving to enhance the activity and the liquidity of the domestic interbank bond market. At the end of June, The bond trading volume between us and overseas institutional investors increased by 35% year-on-year, consistent with the growth rate of our bank's bond market-making volume. Recently, the central bank has made some new movement, and also we have seen some new changes in the demand and the supply of bonds. So looking ahead, ICBC will actively develop our bond business based on the principles of sufficient strength steady pace optimized structure and sustainable pricing striving to achieve a balance between functionality and profitability to make a greater contribution to serve the real economy and high-quality development of the bank. So firstly, to provide comprehensive support for the real economy, we will continue to optimize account and portfolio structures, strategically allocating investment types, maturities, and currencies to balance liquidity, security, and profitability. Efforts will be made to enhance the revenue contribution of bond investment and trading, aiming for high-quality development. In terms of support for key areas, we will deepen our focus on the five key financial areas – by increasing investment in the major strategies, key sectors, important regions, and weak links. Secondly, we will shoulder our market-making responsibilities. We will continue to be committed to our role as a market maker, helping to ensure the efficient operation of the domestic bond market. We will comprehensively improve market-making service levels, strengthen market research, analysis, and change judgment capabilities, and aim to increase trading business income. while maintaining market liquidity. Efforts will be made to expand the range of counterparties and extend the service reach. Building on current overseas trading counterparties, we will continue to develop relationships with foreign sovereign and non-bank institutional clients. At the same time, the bank will work closely with financial infrastructure regulation regulatory bodies to optimize bond market regulation and maintain good trading order. Thirdly, we will also try to... We will... Aimed to fully leverage synergies between bond underwriting and investment, facilitating interconnected growth in these areas, we will continue to integrate our customer business talent, technology, and brand advantages to continuously optimize the ecosystem of bond issuance and distributors. On one hand, we will appropriately lower the credit focus of domestic issuers while supporting more high-quality issuers such as foreign central banks, international development institutions, and multinational corporations to issue PANDA bonds domestically, thus helping to enhance the role of RMB as financing currency. On the other hand, we will continue to refine our bond distribution network, enhance distribution efforts and capacity, and achieve differentiated management of risk appetites for bond investment and distribution. This will support the interconnected development of the primary and secondary bond market and improve the multi-layered bond market system that integrates investment financing. Due to limited time, the Q&A session will close now. Thank you for the questions from our investors and analysts. If you have further questions, feel free to contact our IR team. Please provide support to ICBC as always, and we will also continue to achieve stable operation of ICBC so as to deliver stable returns to ICBC. So this is the end of the interims.