China Citic Bank was one of the first commercial banks in China to enter private banking, kicking off its operations in 2007. Its relatively long presence in the market versus peers held it in good stead last year.
Despite an industry-wide slowdown in private banking growth in 2021, China Citic Bank Private Banking’s client base grew 18% to 60,270, while assets under management rose more than 20% to surpass Rmb820 billion ($129 billion). Both the scale and rate of expansion put Citic ahead of most of its joint stock peers in an increasingly competitive industry.
Citic was among the first Chinese banks to venture into family trusts, the essential tool for wealth transfer and succession planning, having launched its first family trust in early 2015.
Over the years, Citic has helped more than 1,900 clients to set up family trusts whose total value exceeded Rmb43 billion. Thanks to its widely recognized expertise in the field, Citic’s family trust business has been growing at an annual rate of at least 15% over the past three years.
Serving 215 ultra-high net-worth clients with at least Rmb100 million of individual AuM, Citic private banking added Rmb8 billion of new business to its family trust segment last year.