Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. announced that its subsidiary Ping An Bank Co., Ltd. (“Ping An Bank”) ranks 46th on the list of The Banker’s Top 1000 World Banks which is up nine places from last year.
The Banker, owned by the Financial Times, is published annually where global leaders in the industry are recognised for their achievements. Banks are assessed by Tier 1 capital, assets, capital/asset ratio, real profit growth, profit on average capital and return on assets.
Other top banks on the 2020 list include: Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, Bank of China, JP Morgan Chase & Co., Bank of America, Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup and HSBC Holdings.
Maintaining stable and healthy business growth
In 2019, Ping An Bank realized a net profit of RMB28,195 million, up 13.6% year on year, and the growth rate was the highest for the past three years. Ping An Bank made significant progress in its strategic transformation to a retail banking focus. Retail banking’s revenue and net profit recorded 29.2% and 13.8% growth year-on-year, accounting for 58.0% and 69.1% of Ping An Bank’s revenue and net profit respectively.
Leveraging technology advantages to combat COVID-19
Amid the COVID-19 epidemic, Ping An Bank quickly resumed business through online digital operations. In the first three months of 2020, revenue increased by 16.8% year-on-year to RMB37,926 million. Net profit rose 14.8% year on year to RMB8,548 million. The cost-to-income ratio declined by 1.68 percentage points year on year to 27.94%.
Benefiting from powerful big data credit investigation capabilities and a platform for a risk control model for digital finance, Ping An Bank enables 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week online service and processing via a variety of contactless service channels for mainstream financing products, such as credit, guarantee and mortgage products.
It also introduced an emergency credit approval process, reserved a special credit scale and offered preferential loan pricing terms to protect the capital needs of enterprises that support coronavirus infection prevention and control.
Supporting sustainable development through green credit system
To support sustainable development, including green industries that drive the low-carbon economy and emission reduction, Ping An Bank has enhanced support for innovation of green financial products. As of the end of 2019, the total green credit line granted by Ping An Bank reached more than RMB57 billion.
Mr. Xie Yonglin, President and Co-CEO of Ping An Group, Chairman of Ping An Bank said,
“Ping An Bank has achieved rapid development and emerged into a commercial bank with unique retail characteristics and leading technological capabilities. Going forward, leveraging on the two advantages of Ping An Group in integrated finance and technology, we will continue to consolidate our position as a digital bank, an eco-bank and a platform bank, in order to achieve further advancement.”
Ping An’s virtual bank announced its pilot trial under the Fintech Supervisory Sandbox (“FSS”) of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (“HKMA”). The Ping An OneConnect Bank (PAOB) was among the 8 virtual banks that have received a license from HKMA to operate.
Featured image credit: Ping An
