#记录我的2024#对于大多数人来说, a bank job is undoubtedly a good job, with a decent job, a high income and even being called a golden job, but just recently, many media have found that the once high-paying banks have also begun to have a hard time, and salary cuts and tight days have begun to become popular keywords for banks.
1. Even the banks are going to have a tight life?
According to a report by Sohu Finance, Sohu Finance counted the latest data of 23 banks and found that in 2023, the average salary of employees of 7 banks will exceed 500,000 yuan, with China Merchants Bank having the highest salary of 613,000 yuan, and the lowest average salary of statistical banks is 316,300 yuan, which is Changshu Bank. At the same time, more than half of the statistical banks have seen a decline in the average salary of employees, and most of them are large banks, Ping An Bank, China Merchants Bank, and China CITIC Bank have all cut salaries by more than 30,000 yuan, and Bank of Chongqing and Bank of Zhengzhou have also dropped significantly.
At the beginning of the year, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank's "a letter from home is worth 10,000 dollars" once caused the whole network to complain. Some bank employees told Sohu Finance that the year-end bonus that arrived early in previous years did not arrive until the last day before Chinese New Year's Eve this year, and they were worried about it during the period, for fear that the "family letter" plot would fall on their heads. Some bank employees also complained on social platforms, "The high temperature subsidy is really gone" and "I have gone back five years of attendance"......
According to Sohu financial statistics, among the 23 statistical banks, 12 have a year-on-year decline in average salaries and 11 have risen.
Coincidentally, according to a report by China News Weekly, some banks have even experienced a contraction in total compensation, which can be called "unprecedented". In 2023, the total remuneration of China CITIC Bank, Industrial Bank, China Everbright Bank, and Ping An Bank will decrease compared with the previous year, and according to wind data, the total remuneration of the four banks will decrease by 50 million yuan, 131 million yuan, 464 million yuan, and 1.253 billion yuan respectively. In the case of the decline in the total salary, the number of employees in China CITIC Bank is still increasing, which directly leads to the annual average salary of China CITIC Bank of 569,700 yuan, a sharp decrease of 8.77% year-on-year.
Among the six major banks, the total remuneration of the senior management team of ICBC, CCB and Postal Savings Bank decreased to varying degrees last year, falling by about 2.04 million yuan, 110,000 yuan and 1.56 million yuan respectively. In contrast, the total executive remuneration of Minsheng Bank, China Merchants Bank and Ping An Bank decreased a lot, down 27.0798 million yuan, 21.7035 million yuan and 20.4699 million yuan respectively, with a year-on-year decrease of 36.65%, 36.83% and 42.07% respectively. The total executive compensation of Zheshang Bank also decreased significantly, to 13.1688 million yuan, a decrease of 42.72%.
What's more noteworthy is that not long ago, China Merchants Bank, the former king of retail, held a 2023 annual results conference, and Wang Liang, president of China Merchants Bank, publicly stated that the bank's operating pressure is increasing now, and the strategic policy of living a "tight life" has been clarified. As soon as the statement came out, it immediately aroused strong attention in the market and #招商银行提出要过紧日子#的话题随即登上微博热搜.
Second, when salary cuts become a trend, is the bank's golden job still good?
With the changes in the economic environment in recent years, the banking industry, as an important part of the financial industry, is also facing unprecedented challenges. The banking industry, which was once regarded as a "golden job bowl", has now also heard the sound of salary cuts.
As a core component of the financial industry, the banking industry is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people because of its close connection with money and its image of high profits in history. In the early days, the banking industry did experience a golden age of high salaries, and in the early stages of the development of the banking industry, financial services played a vital role in socio-economic activities, but the supply was relatively limited. As a bridge connecting depositors and borrowers, banks have the privilege of allocating funds and play an irreplaceable role in the flow of social funds. This scarcity and uniqueness gives the banking industry a high market position and bargaining power, allowing it to make higher profits. What's more, bank graduates usually come from well-known universities and have solid financial expertise and good professionalism. These high-achieving students have brought advanced concepts, rigorous risk management capabilities and efficient operational efficiency to the banking industry, which have strongly supported the bank's business development and profit growth. Banks are willing to offer competitive compensation packages to attract and retain these talented talents.
At the same time, the profit level of banks is also quite high, and the traditional profit model of banks mainly relies on deposit and loan spreads, that is, by taking deposits from the public and issuing loans at higher interest rates, from which they earn interest differentials. In a period of good market environment and rapid economic growth, bank credit demand is strong, interest rate spreads are stable and lucrative, and bank profitability is strong. In addition, banks have further broadened their revenue streams and increased profit margins by providing other financial services, such as settlement, foreign exchange, investment banking, asset management, etc.
As a result, banks have been able to make good profits during this period, thanks to their central position in the financial system, and as a result, have been able to offer higher compensation and benefits to their employees. However, the development of any industry will follow the objective laws of the industrial life cycle. In the early stage of industrial development, the market space is huge, and the overall profit level is high, so the phenomenon of high salaries is more common. However, as the industry matures, the market becomes more and more competitive, and the level of profits begins to decline, it becomes more and more difficult to maintain high salaries. The banking industry is no exception. With the opening of the financial market and the intensification of competition, the profit margins of the banking industry have gradually been compressed, and salary cuts have become an inevitable trend.
Second, what is the root cause of the bank's salary cut? The core reasons for the bank's salary cut are indeed closely related to the current performance downturn, specifically:
First, net interest margin income began to decline continuously. The traditional profit model of banks mainly relies on the net interest income of deposits and loans, that is, the interest rate difference between deposits and loans. In recent years, due to factors such as loose monetary policy, falling market interest rates, and regulatory requirements to reduce the financing cost of the real economy, banks' lending rates have been declining. At the same time, although the benchmark deposit rate is relatively stable, due to the intensification of market competition and the innovation of deposit products, banks have to offer more attractive deposit interest rates in order to attract and retain customers, resulting in higher costs on the liability side. As a result of this combination of factors, banks' net interest margins continue to narrow, which directly affects their profitability.
Second, residents' tendency to save has also changed. In the face of heightened economic uncertainty and declining investment return expectations, households and businesses tend to increase their savings, which has led to an increase in bank deposits. While the increase in deposits may seem beneficial to banks' sources of funding, if it is not effectively translated into more profitable loans, it will raise the cost of interest payments for banks. At the same time, the recession of the real economy has led to a weakening of enterprises' willingness to invest and debt repayment ability, a decrease in loan demand, especially the scarcity of high-quality loan projects, an increase in the difficulty of bank lending, and an increase in potential credit risks. In addition, some borrowers choose to repay their loans early to save on interest expenses, further reducing the bank's interest income.
Third, the uncertainty of the external environment has also reduced the profitability of banks. Factors such as sluggish global economic growth have also hit the banking sector. On the one hand, the export-oriented economy has been impacted, the demand for loans from relevant enterprises has decreased, and the asset quality of banks has been under pressure; on the other hand, the policy requires banks to reduce loan interest rates and reduce fees, which objectively compresses banks' profit margins. These macroeconomic factors have led to a decrease in corporate demand for credit, which has increased pressure on banks' asset quality, which in turn has affected banks' profit performance.
Third, the pressure on bankers is increasing rapidly. In the context of the shift from the incremental era to the stock era, the banking business has indeed brought unprecedented challenges to bankers. On the one hand, in the era of incrementality, with the rapid development of the economy and strong market demand, the scale of banking business continues to expand, and profit growth is relatively easy. However, after entering the stock era, the market saturation has increased, economic growth has slowed down, credit demand has weakened, and asset quality pressure has increased, making it significantly more difficult for banks to grow their performance. For bankers, this means that they need to fight for more business share in the limited market space in order to meet higher and higher performance targets, and the pressure naturally increases sharply.
On the other hand, in the era of incrementality, due to the continuous expansion of the market size, banks can still share the dividends brought by market growth, although there is competition among them. In the stock era, the market cake will no longer increase, and may even shrink, which makes the competition between banks change from "making the cake bigger" to "grabbing the cake". In order to compete for limited customer resources and market share, bankers not only need to provide better services, but also constantly innovate business models, improve product competitiveness, and significantly increase the intensity and complexity of work.
Under the dual impact of performance pressure and intensified competition, the income stability of bankers is challenged. On the one hand, due to the slowdown in business growth, banks may take measures such as salary cuts and welfare cuts to control costs and cope with the decline in profits; on the other hand, because performance appraisal is closely linked to business completion, many relationship managers may face a situation where their revenue may not meet expectations or even decline even if they are busy. This phenomenon of "busy but not rewarding" further exacerbates the phenomenon of involution in the industry, and employees have to devote more time and energy to deal with fierce competition in order to keep their positions or increase their income.
Therefore, the era of the bank's golden job bowl is changing, and the salary cut is only the appearance, and behind it is the profound change of the entire industry. The banking industry needs to adapt to the new normal and actively seek transformation and development, and for practitioners, it is necessary to think about how to seize opportunities in this wave of changes, realize their own value, and even how to survive in this industry, which may be a problem that every banker must consider.