After the controversy, let's take another look at China Merchants Bank's true moat.

Produced by | China Interview Network

Reviewed by | Li Xiaoyan

In the new normal of the banking industry—low interest rates, narrow interest margins, and increasingly fierce competition—the dual attention triggered by China Merchants Bank’s 2025 performance and the remarks from its chairman essentially reflects the market’s deep questioning of the sustainable core competitiveness of leading banks. Although challenges are becoming evident—slower short-term growth, fluctuations on the investment side, and a decline in the share of retail profits—China Merchants Bank, with its “customer-centric” corporate culture as the core, combined with a three-dimensional moat built on its solid foundation in retail, wealth management, digital intelligence technology, and risk-control systems, still has the firm thickness to weather market cycles, and its long-term competitive advantages have not been shaken.

Chairman Miao Jianmin’s remarks about the “moat” have sparked heated discussion, with the focus centered on interpretations of employee dedication case studies. Public opinion has reduced them to “a culture of overtime,” which is in fact a one-sided misunderstanding of China Merchants Bank’s deeper corporate culture. Miao Jianmin’s core message is that the fundamental moat is to emphasize that “making the customer-centric approach internalize into corporate culture and translate into employees’ daily behaviors.” The intent of the case is to illustrate the organizational traits of efficient execution and a customer-oriented mindset—performance materials completed in two days, delayed service at branches—which in essence is the implementation of responsiveness to market needs and the priority of customers, rather than simply consuming time.

This culture is not just talk. From “Change because of you” to “the best customer experience bank,” the accumulation from more than thirty years of service in practice has formed the organization’s unique genetic makeup at CMB. It supports three major advantages: first, talent cohesion—market-oriented and professionalized directions attract top talent in the industry, with the proportion of R&D personnel exceeding 27%, far above the industry average; second, service penetration—remote service connection rate of 99.09%, 20-second response rate of 94.73%, and customer satisfaction of 99.82%, creating extremely high user switching costs through exceptional experience; third, strategic execution—since retail transformation to large wealth management, each strategic move has been implemented efficiently, forming a positive loop of “philosophy–culture–behavior–performance.” As a form of soft competitiveness, culture is difficult to replicate and impossible to achieve quickly—this is precisely CMB’s most solid underlying barrier.

In 2025, CMB achieved operating revenue of 337.53B yuan (year-on-year +0.01%) and attributable net profit of 150.18B yuan (year-on-year +1.21%). Even though growth has slowed, in a context of continuously narrowing industry interest margins and volatility in capital markets, this “slight increase” fully demonstrates operating resilience. Looking longitudinally, after operating revenue declined for two consecutive years, it turned positive; growth in the fourth quarter on a single-quarter basis became the key inflection point. Looking horizontally, average daily profit exceeded 410 million yuan, ROE reached 13.4%, and it continued to lead the peer group of joint-stock banks.

Advantages in asset quality and the liability side have strengthened the safety margin. At year-end, total assets exceeded 13 trillion yuan, with non-performing loan ratio at 0.94%, maintained at high-quality levels below 1% for many years. Provision coverage ratio stood at 391.79%, with risk-compensation capacity leading the industry. Customer deposits were nearly 10 trillion yuan, growing 8.13%; current deposits accounted for more than 52%, highlighting a strong advantage in low-cost funds, which provides support for steady growth in net interest income (+2.04%). Even though self-operated investment results were affected by volatility in the bond market—resulting in an 130k yuan loss from fair value changes—overall risk remains controllable, and the foundation of profitability has not been undermined.

Business structure shows a positive trend of adjustment. Although retail finance’s pre-tax profit share fell for three consecutive periods, the absolute scale still grew steadily. The foundation remains solid: 224 million retail customers and 1.708 trillion yuan in AUM (an increase of 100k yuan year-on-year). The growth rate of high-net-worth clients of “Gold Sun” and above was 17%, with customer structure continuing to move upward. Revenue from large wealth management was 8.16B yuan, up 16.91% year-on-year, ending three years of consecutive declines and becoming the biggest bright spot in performance. Among them, agency fund income increased 40.36% and agency trust income increased 65.55%, with clear transformation results toward product standardization and equity-type allocation. The structure of non-interest income was optimized: net fee and commission income was 170.8k yuan (+4.39%). It turned positive for the first time since 2022, making the path of low-capital growth even clearer.

As the “king of retail,” CMB’s retail moat is deepening from a scale advantage toward a quality advantage. The credit card business has shown resilience in the industry’s downward cycle; the number of cardholders in circulation exceeded 70 million, reaching a historical high, and card volume has been steadily recovering. Facing a decline in transaction amounts, CMB proactively adjusted its strategy and implemented “steady operations with low volatility”: optimizing platinum card benefits rules and focusing on high-contribution customer segments; upgrading the intelligent service system and increasing the monthly active users of the mobile lifestyle APP to 40.72 million (+0.68%), improving service efficiency through human-machine collaboration. Short-term revenue faces pressure, but customer quality and asset structure continue to improve, providing momentum for industry recovery.

The trend is clear: large wealth management has become a new growth engine. CMB has built the “TREE asset allocation system,” serving more than 11.75 million customers holding positions, and its professional investment advisory capability has formed a differentiated advantage. The group’s coordination advantage is highlighted: the scale of asset management businesses such as CMB Wealth Management and China Merchants Fund reached 2.609 trillion yuan, delivering stable fee income to the parent bank. From “product sales” to “customer asset allocation,” AUM has continued to grow at a high rate, forming a positive flywheel of “customers–scale–revenue–technology.” Chairman Miao Jianmin clearly stated that “wealth management is the core breakthrough for retail to start anew,” and the strategic position continues to rise.

CMB turns technology investment into hard-core competitiveness. Annual technology investment exceeded 20 billion yuan, accounting for 5.47% of operating revenue. It completed 2,220+ system-wide migration to the cloud and launched the financial large model “One Move from CMB.” AI covers 120+ business scenarios. Digital penetration services the entire process: online services are made intelligent, risk-control decisions are automated, and operations management is digitized—improving efficiency while reducing costs. Typical examples include the credit card “Xiao Zhao” intelligent agent and the remote service matrix, both representing experience enablement through technology.

Talent and organizational advantages continue to be strengthened. The credit card center changed leadership: Li Mingdong, with a background in wealth management, took over, releasing a signal of deep integration of “credit cards + wealth management,” and connecting the payment entry point with asset allocation. The “large head office–small branches” structure ensures strategic implementation efficiently, and the talent cultivation system supports business innovation. During the industry’s transformation period, precise personnel arrangements and professional teams provide key assurance for breakthroughs in business.

Chairman remarks controversy, slower performance growth, and volatility on the investment side are all stage-level manifestations during CMB’s transformation. Clearing away the fog reveals what really matters: a customer-centric culture is an unreplicable core. 200 million+ retail customers and 17 trillion yuan in AUM are an unshakable foundation. The upturn in large wealth management is clearly visible as a new engine, and digital intelligence technology plus top-tier talent are the continuously reinforced barriers.

The banking industry is undergoing deep differentiation, and high-quality banks benefit from their comprehensive competitiveness—stronger banks remain consistently strong. CMB’s moat is not a single-dimensional advantage, but an ecosystem built on deep coordination among culture, customers, business, technology, and talent. Short-term challenges do not change the long-term trend. As wealth management momentum is released, retail businesses improve in quality and efficiency, and digital transformation deepens, CMB’s moat will become wider and deeper during adjustments, continuing to lead China’s banking industry in high-quality development.

A wealth of information and precise analysis—exclusively on the Sina Finance APP