Zhang Jianhua, 57, a central bank official, left his second stop as a banker – Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) .
On February 18, Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) (600015. SH) announced that Mr. Zhang Jianhua recently submitted a written resignation report and resigned as president due to job changes. Before the appointment of a new president by the board of directors and the approval of the CBRC, the board of directors appointed chairman Li Minji to perform the duties of president on his behalf.
Zhang Jianhua was airborne as president of Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) at the beginning of 2017 and was reappointed as president at the first meeting of the eighth board of directors held on April 21, 2020. His term of office originally expired at the expiration of the eighth board of directors.
When he first became president, Zhang Jianhua was highly expected by the industry. He has both central and local financial management experience and practical experience in banks. He is expected to benefit the future development of Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) . During his five-year term of office, Zhang Jianhua, with his in-depth thinking on green finance, small and micro finance and financial technology, made great efforts to promote the layout of Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) in relevant fields, and the asset scale, revenue and profit indicators of Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) increased significantly compared with those at the beginning of taking office.
However, some problems and challenges encountered in the development of Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) still need to be solved. For example, in terms of roe and other important indicators to measure the profitability of the bank, the bank has fallen all the way from the middle level of the same industry in 2017 to the bottom industry. How to reverse this trend; Another example is how to face the situation that the company’s net profit and market value performance are caught up by urban commercial banks.
For the impact of the resignation of the president, Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) development gains and losses in the past five years, and how to face the situation of anti overtaking of urban commercial banks, the reporter of Economic Observer network sent interview questions to Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) . As of the press, no reply has been received.
What did five years bring?
At the beginning of 2017, Zhang Jianhua was appointed Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) president by the “airborne” President of Beijing Rural Commercial Bank, which was the second stop of his “going to sea” bank. Before that, Zhang Jianhua had been working in the central bank system and was a scholar official.
According to his resume, Zhang Jianhua was born in 1965, graduated from Tsinghua University with a bachelor’s degree and graduated from the Graduate Department of the people’s Bank of China. He joined the central bank in 1989, worked in the financial management department, non banking department and financial stability bureau, and served as deputy director of the financial stability bureau of the central bank; He served as the director of the Research Bureau of the central bank in 2008 and the party secretary and President of Hangzhou central sub branch of the central bank in 2012; In 2015, he served as Deputy Secretary of the Party committee and President of Beijing Rural Commercial Bank; He became president of Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) in 2017.
When taking over as president of Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) , the internal and external environment of Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) is facing great challenges: at the market and industry levels, the economy is facing downward pressure, interbank competition is fierce, and the impact of Internet finance is obvious; Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) internally, it is the first intensive high-level adjustment after the previous senior management has been stable for nearly a decade. In December 2016, Wu Jian resigned as chairman of Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) due to his age. Fan Dazhi, the former president of Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) , took over as chairman, and Zhang Jianhua, the former president of Beijing Rural Commercial Bank, took over as president. But only three months later, fan Dazhi resigned from Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) . In April 2017, Li Minji, the former chairman of Beijing International Trust Co., Ltd., also born in 1965, took over as chairman of Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) .
Based on the above factors, at that time, the market speculated that the new management of Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) is expected to adjust or revise their business development ideas and accelerate the transformation of banks. In 2017, after the new chairman Li Minji and the new president Zhang Jianhua formed a “new partner” to take charge of Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) , they formulated the bank’s development plan outline for 2017-2020 and deployed six strategic priorities, including promoting financial science and technology innovation, deepening “small and medium-sized enterprise financial service providers” and building green financial characteristic businesses. As a result, the market’s good expectations for the future development of Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) were raised, which led to the rise of the bank’s share price. In the middle of that year, the share price of Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) rose all the way to nearly 10 yuan, approaching the historical high.
However, at that time Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) still faced the challenge of weak performance growth. When the third quarterly report of 2017 was released, Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) became the only bank with almost zero net profit growth among A-share listed banks at that time. By the end of the reporting period in 2017, Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) had realized a net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies of 19.819 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 142 million yuan, an increase of only 0.72%.
After taking office, Zhang Jianhua’s 2017 public speech can be found in the following topics: the development of green banking, small and micro finance, and financial technology around the bank. The positioning of the “SME Service Providers” that has been adhered to by Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) and the “Internet plus platform finance” plan are also “one pulse”.
For Zhang Jianhua himself, the green finance complex has a long history. When attending the event in 2021, Zhang Jianhua recalled that “as early as 2011, he began to study the low-carbon economy under the guidance of President Zhou Xiaochuan and published the book low-carbon finance”. During his tenure, Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) green finance developed rapidly.
During the 2017-2020 planning period, Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) quadrupled the balance of green loans in four years, with a compound annual growth rate of 50%. By the end of June 2021, the balance of green loans had exceeded 200 billion yuan, reaching 2015.12 billion yuan, an increase of 11.92% over the end of the previous year. According to the Circular of the central bank on the implementation of green credit in the first quarter of 2021, the proportion of green loans of the Bank ranks first among 21 major commercial banks.
Zhang Jianhua made up his mind to realize Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) digital transformation in 2017. At the “2017 Bank Of China Limited(601988) Industry Development Forum”, Zhang Jianhua said that Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) formulated the development strategy for the next four years, brewing the digital transformation of the whole bank, and shared nine views. Serving small and medium-sized enterprises has always been the tradition of Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) . Zhang Jianhua also started to promote online microfinance and use financial technology to control risk.
Zhang Jianhua has repeatedly talked about the necessity of developing supply chain finance and industrial digital finance in public. On May 23, 2021, he said at a forum that a relatively big weakness of bank financial technology is public service. Based on this, Zhang Jianhua believes that industrial digital finance is an important breakthrough direction in the future development of financial technology. Financial institutions can look for the whole supply chain along the transaction chain of funds, that is, in addition to simple financing, they can also involve capital delivery, open bank construction and other links, so as to finally realize the seamless connection between enterprise end, client end and bank financial institution end, and graft financial services into the business behavior of enterprises.
Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) is also making many adjustments along this line: in March 2020, Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) established a digital transformation promotion office to promote digital transformation into the fast lane by unifying digital cognition, innovating business model and optimizing system and mechanism; Establish a financial innovation research center in the first half of 2020; In 2021, it took the lead in establishing the industrial digital finance department in the industry, which is dedicated to the innovation and development of industrial digital finance.
During his five years in office, Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) many performance indicators increased significantly, of which the asset scale of the bank increased by more than 40%. According to the Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) 2020 annual report, the bank said that it had successfully completed all tasks of the four-year development plan, and the bank’s asset scale, total loans, operating income and profit before provision increased by 44.29%, 73.34%, 48.89% and 68.51% respectively compared with four years ago. By the end of the third quarter of 2021, the bank’s total assets were 3.55 trillion yuan, the non-performing rate was 1.78%, and the provision coverage rate was 153.08%. During the reporting period, the net profit attributable to the shareholders of the listed company was 16.195 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.7%; The operating revenue was 72.493 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.6%.
challenges to be solved
Under the background of the theme words of the changing times such as “double carbon” reform, common prosperity and high-quality development, the banking industry has ushered in a new era of differentiation, and the transformation and layout of banks is like sailing against the current.
Taking green finance as an example, under the goal of “double carbon”, more and more commercial banks have been involved in this field, and the market competition is increasing day by day. On January 30, 2022, the central bank released the statistical report on loan investment of financial institutions in 2021, which showed that green loans continued to grow at a high speed. At the end of 2021, the balance of domestic and foreign currency green loans was 15.9 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 33%, 12.7 percentage points higher than the end of the previous year, 21.7 percentage points higher than the growth rate of various loans, and an increase of 3.86 trillion yuan in the whole year.
At present, two large state-owned banks have disclosed the data of their green credit in 2021. By the end of 2021, Agricultural Bank Of China Limited(601288) green loan balance was nearly 2 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of more than 30%; The balance of China Construction Bank Corporation(601939) green loans reached 1.95 trillion yuan, with a growth rate of 45.67%. How to maintain the advantages of green banking is worth paying attention to.
Similarly, with the current tide of big wealth management, this track is being watched by many financial institutions, such as China Merchants Bank’s transformation of big wealth management, China Citic Bank Corporation Limited(601998) recruitment of full wealth management, etc. for Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) , how to layout products and channels to keep up with the needs of investors in the era of wealth management is a subject worthy of deep thought.
In the view of the outside world, some problems and challenges faced by Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) in the past five years still need to be solved.
Return on net assets (ROE) and return on assets (ROA) are important indicators to measure the profitability of banks. They are also important indicators valued by securities analysts and institutional investors. The reporter inquired the wind data and found that Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) the above two indicators fell all the way. At the end of 2017, the annualized weighted average roe was 13.54% and the annualized weighted average ROA was 0.82%, both of which were at the middle level of the industry, including joint-stock banks and large banks. By the end of the third quarter of 2021, Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) annualized weighted average ROE (7.89%) and annualized average ROA (0.63%) were almost at the bottom of the industry, The gap between them and the rising urban commercial banks such as Bank Of Beijing Co.Ltd(601169) and Bank Of Jiangsu Co.Ltd(600919) is widening (their annualized weighted average roe at the end of the third quarter of last year were 11.34% and 14.03% respectively, and their ROA were 0.82% and 0.87% respectively). How to reverse this trend needs Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) management to take practical measures.
At the same time, in terms of performance, Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) is facing the situation of urban commercial banks catching up. For example, by the end of the third quarter of 2021, the net profit of Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) had recorded 16.4 billion yuan, and the net profits of Bank Of Beijing Co.Ltd(601169) , Bank Of Shanghai Co.Ltd(601229) , Bank Of Jiangsu Co.Ltd(600919) had recorded 18.3 billion yuan, 16.6 billion yuan and 16.1 billion yuan respectively. These are also reflected in the performance of the company’s share price and market value. Compared with five years ago, the current share price of Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) hovered at a low level. As of February 18, 2021, Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) had a market value of 88.9 billion, which was surpassed by some urban commercial banks ( Bank Of Beijing Co.Ltd(601169) 98.3 billion, Bank Of Jiangsu Co.Ltd(600919) 102.2 billion, Bank Of Nanjing Co.Ltd(601009) 103 billion, Bank Of Shanghai Co.Ltd(601229) 102.2 billion).
In recent years, Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) has frequent problems in corporate governance and risk control. According to the reporter’s statistics, in 2021 Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) received double-digit fines for many problems involving loan management and illegal loan issuance, with a total fine of more than 100 million. On December 16, 2021, the Consumer Rights Protection Bureau of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission issued the notice on Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) infringement of consumers’ rights and interests, informing the problems related to the infringement of consumers’ rights and interests found in the on-site inspection of its consumer protection, of which the personal business is in the “hardest hit area”. At that time, Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) responded that all problems had been rectified.
It is worth noting that in 2021, Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) formulated and released the development plan for 2021-2025, indicating that it is necessary to consolidate the basic position of corporate business with comprehensive financial services, strive to improve the new driving force for the development of digital and retail business, strive to create new features for the development of green Finance and wealth management, and strive to build a new highland for regional development in Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao, Accelerate the construction of a national joint-stock commercial bank with characteristics, quality and competitiveness.
In the second year after the implementation of the new development plan, Hua Xia Bank Co.Limited(600015) management how to face the competitive pressure of the industry and break the situation is worthy of market attention.
