The "highlights" of the banks dissipated.
1
"Two Fires"
China Merchants Bank has been a bit "hot" recently.
The first fire comes from large certificates of deposit.
A few days ago, according to reports from Southern Metropolis Daily and other media, on the China Merchants Bank APP, there was no trace of the three-year and five-year large-amount certificate of deposit business in the column of large-amount certificates of deposit (starting from 200,000 yuan).
The report also shows that the interest rate of China Merchants Bank's three-year large-amount certificates of deposit has reached 2.9%, but now looking at the bank's fixed deposit products, it is almost impossible to see an interest rate of more than 2.5%.
As the news spread, the deposit market became more and more cold. In the past few years, large savings have been regarded as a representative of safe and stable financial management, which has the characteristics of long term and high returns, and is regarded as a sweet spot for "lying down to make money". In order to buy products with higher interest rates, some people cross the province to buy large-amount certificates of deposit.
Nowadays, even China Merchants Bank, which has always been "wealthy", has begun to suspend large-value certificates of deposit with a maturity of more than 3 years, which shows the current situation of the industry. According to the combing of the city boundary, among the 10 selected banks, only ICBC shows a 5-year large-denomination certificate of deposit product with an interest rate of 2.4% on the shelf, but clicking to buy shows that it has been sold out.
I am afraid that this kind of opportunity to "make money lying down" is becoming less and less.
The second fire is related to "reverse salary bargaining".
Some time ago, #招商银行近两年向员工追薪1亿多元#的话题突然冲上了微博热搜.
The reason is that the financial report shows that in 2023, China Merchants Bank will recover a total amount of 43.29 million yuan in performance compensation. This figure is down from 58.24 million yuan in 2022, but the number of employees covered has increased from 2,876 in 2022 to 4,415 employees in 2023.
In the past two years, China Merchants Bank has recovered more than 100 million yuan in performance-based compensation. As of the end of 2023, China Merchants Bank has a total of 116,500 employees, that is, 3.78% of employees have been executed for performance pay recourse clawback, and the average employee has been recourse and debated 9,805 yuan.
This was foreshadowed. According to the 2022 annual report, in order to alleviate various operational and management risks, China Merchants Bank has established a mechanism for deferred payment of remuneration and recourse clawback of performance-based remuneration in accordance with regulatory requirements and operational management needs.
Zooming in a little further, this is not an "exclusive operation" of China Merchants Bank. In February 2021, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) issued the Guiding Opinions on Establishing and Improving the Recourse and Clawback Mechanism for Performance-based Remuneration of Banking and Insurance Institutions, clarifying that the performance-based remuneration and other incentive remuneration of senior managers and personnel in key positions of banking and insurance institutions should be recovered under eight circumstances. Against this backdrop, many banks are starting to recover their annual pay performance from their employees.
But behind these two fires, it is not accidental.
2
It's harder to make money
The answer lies in the earnings report.
According to the data, the operating income of China Merchants Bank in 2023 will be 339.123 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 1.64%.
The decline does not seem to be large, but you must know that the last time China Merchants Bank's revenue fell was in 2009, when it was affected by the financial crisis. In other words, after a lapse of 14 years, China Merchants Bank once again experienced negative revenue growth.
Let's look at the profits. In 2023, China Merchants Bank will achieve a net profit attributable to the parent company of 146.602 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.22%.
Some people may be curious, why is China Merchants Bank's net profit more when its revenue is declining?
In the financial report, the credit impairment loss of China Merchants Bank during the reporting period was 41.278 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 27.26%. On the other hand, in 2022, this figure is 56.751 billion yuan. This alone saved 15.473 billion yuan in expenditure.
In the eyes of the outside world, this is the key to China Merchants Bank's profit growth.
Looking deeper, China Merchants Bank's performance weakness has been revealed.
According to the financial report data, in 2023, China Merchants Bank's net interest income will be 214.669 billion yuan, down 1.63% year-on-year, and non-interest income will be 124.454 billion yuan, down 1.65% year-on-year, of which net fee and commission income will be 84.108 billion yuan, down 10.78% year-on-year.
More representative indicators are that during the reporting period, China Merchants Bank's net interest margin was 2.15%, down 25 basis points year-on-year, and net interest margin was 2.03%, down 25 basis points year-on-year, continuing to show a narrowing trend.
▲ Source: Said Fortune Cat
Net interest margin refers to the difference between a bank's cost of funding and operating income, which measures the bank's ability to generate interest-bearing assets from interest-paying liabilities to generate net interest income. To put it simply, the higher this number, the stronger the bank's ability to make money.
Judging from the current industry situation, commercial banks as a whole are facing pressure from further narrowing interest margins, and China Merchants Bank is no exception.
Another statistic is telling. According to Caimao's combing, in 2023, the growth rate of China Merchants Bank's total loans and advances will be far less than the growth rate of customer deposits:
6.51 trillion yuan was loaned out, and 8.16 trillion yuan was deposited, a difference of 1.65 trillion yuan.
Among them, the growth rate of fixed deposits is even more exaggerated: from -4.19% at the end of 2020 to 20.79% in 2023.
More deposits mean more interest payments, which are costs for banks.
Seeing this, you will understand why China Merchants Bank wants to suspend large-value certificates of deposit with a maturity of more than 3 years. Behind this, the banking industry is facing a harsh reality: it is harder to make money.
3
The troubles of the "king of retail".
China Merchants Bank is known as the "King of Retail".
According to the official website, as of the end of 2023, China Merchants Bank's total assets are 11.03 trillion yuan. At the same time, the total assets under management (AUM) of customers reached 13.32 trillion yuan, and the number of retail customers reached 197 million.
On the road to success of China Merchants Bank, the credit card business is an existence that cannot be ignored.
According to the data, as early as 2001, China Merchants Bank established the first credit card center in China that integrates card issuance and marketing, merchant management, clearing operation and risk management. According to the data of Node Finance, by 2006, the number of credit cards issued by China Merchants Bank had exceeded 10 million, accounting for more than 30% of the market share of China's international standard credit cards.
By the end of 2023, the number of credit cards in circulation of China Merchants Bank will be 97.1181 million, with a decline in growth rate, but the scale of credit card transactions still ranks at the top of the industry.
While the scale is rising, hidden dangers are also accumulating. According to the "Circular on Consumer Complaints in the Banking Industry in the Fourth Quarter of 2022" issued by the Consumer Rights Protection Bureau of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, in the fourth quarter of 2022, China Merchants Bank had 336 complaints about the wealth management business of joint-stock commercial banks, accounting for 14.7% of the total number of complaints of China Merchants Bank, ranking first.
On the Black Cat complaint platform, search for the keyword "China Merchants Bank credit card", and there are 22,941 related complaints, focusing on arbitrary deductions, fraudulent consumption, charging high interest, violent collection, etc.
The troubles of the "king of retail" don't stop there.
According to Bread Finance, in the first quarter of 2024, there were 7 fines involving China Merchants Bank and its branches, with a total amount of 2.9118 million yuan.
For example, on January 7, 2024, China Merchants Bank Shanghai Zhongshan Branch was fined 650,000 yuan, confiscated 621,800 yuan of illegal gains, and fined and confiscated a total of 1.2718 million yuan by the Shanghai Branch of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange. The main facts of violation of laws and regulations are "illegal handling of equity transfer business under FDI".
Looking back, in 2023, China Merchants Bank will receive a total of 26 fines involving institutions, with a cumulative fine of 28.032 million yuan. In January 2023, the administrative punishment published on the central bank's website showed that China Merchants Bank was warned by the People's Bank of China and fined 34.235 million yuan for being involved in 13 illegal acts.
In 2022, China Merchants Bank received more than 40 fines for anti-money laundering and credit violations, with a total penalty amount of more than 60 million yuan.
Earlier in 2021, according to the statistics of Phoenix.com Finance's "Bank Eye", China Merchants Bank received at least 14 fines that year, with a total fine of nearly 80 million yuan.
Look at these fines, and then look at China Merchants Bank's "reverse salary bargaining", is this to pass on the "cold air" to employees?
Interestingly, despite the doubts about compliance and risk control, the chief risk officer of China Merchants Bank received a high salary of 2.821 million yuan.
There is no doubt that China Merchants Bank is still the leading joint-stock bank in terms of asset scale and asset quality. Looking back on the past few decades, China Merchants Bank was also the vane of the banking industry. But since Tian Huiyu was dismissed, the sequelae of China Merchants Bank's madness began to gradually be revealed.
The ship turned around. In this regard, Chen Feng of HNA has long been experienced——
When you think you can do anything, you can do anything, and disaster is sown.