Hong Kong, December 23, 2008 -- Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (HKEx: 2318, SSE 601318) announced today that Shenzhen Ping An Bank (“Ping An Bank” or “the Bank”) has gained approval from the China Banking Regulatory Commission (“CBRC”) to open a branch in Guangzhou. The establishment of the Guangzhou Branch represents an important step forward in the Bank’s plans to reinforce its strategic presence in yet another major city in the Pearl River Delta Economic Zone, underlying its continued efforts in building a national service network in a timely manner.
Ping An Bank has seen sound development this year, with its Quanzhou Branch and Xiamen Branch officially starting operations on 8 September and 28 November respectively. In addition, regulatory approval has been obtained to open a branch in Hangzhou, for which intensive preparation work has been underway. On 12 December, the CBRC further granted approval for the Bank to rename its Shenzhen Management Centre to the Shenzhen Branch. Ping An Bank has been rapidly expanding its network, from having presence in three cities at the beginning of its merger with Shenzhen Commercial Bank dated back more than a year ago, to the current seven branches including two in preparation to launch.
For Ping An Bank, 2008 marks an important milestone as it leaps to become a national banking business. As at the end of its third quarter for the fiscal year 2008, the Bank has continued to maintain robust growth for all of its businesses, with steady and healthy growth seen across the board, risk management elevated to another level, and service quality and customer confidence enhanced further. In the first three quarters of the year, the Bank has fulfilled and even exceeded a number of operational targets, taking a leading position in key business developments in the market.
Consumer banking, credit card and SME businesses remain the core markets for Ping An Bank. According to statistics, the Bank has posted remarkable achievements in these three areas. As at the end of the third quarter this year, Ping An Bank’s credit card business has issued 1.22 million credit cards. This translated into a significant growth of 375%, setting the record of the fastest growth in credit card issuance in the nation. At the same time, the cumulative number of Ping An credit card customers participating in the “Ten Yuan Movie Campaign” has surpassed 1 million. Ping An Bank has been encouraged by these terrific results and is confident in expanding its credit card business beyond its existing markets.
For the first three quarters of the year, with the efforts from the staff and an array of campaigns focusing on “Development Through Service”, Ping An Bank has demonstrated a trend of rapid development in personal finance business. By the end of the third quarter, all types of deposit savings have grown 28%, or 3.4 percentage points higher than market peers in Shenzhen on the average, and all types of loans have increased 4.9%, both compared with the beginning of this year. Sales of asset management products have also surged 187% on a year-on-year basis.
Closely following the strategic goal of “becoming the leading bank serving SMEs” since the merger, Ping An Bank has devoted to creating value for its SME clients. As at the end of the third quarter this year, the loan balance for SMEs has achieved a year-on-year growth of 42%, much higher than the 14% growth in loan balance for state-owned enterprises. In addition, the Bank released its first “Business Development Strategic Plan for Serving SMEs” this year, which systematically established the development goals and plans of expanding its SME clientele for the next ten years from a strategic level.
By the end of June 30, 2008, total audited assets of Ping An Bank stood at RMB131.409 billion. Equity attributed to shareholders amounted to RMB7.21 billion, up 15% compared with that as at the end of last year. Non-performing loan ratio was 0.48%, lower than the industry average. Capital adequacy ratio was 10.12%, far exceeding regulatory requirement. Net profit of the first half of 2008 reached RMB795 million, up 40.6% on a year-on-year basis excluding one-off factors.
