As a city commercial bank, Bank of Beijing Private Banking does not boast a business as large as that of a national joint stock bank or a state-owned Chinese bank. But Bank of Beijing stood out. In the first quarter of 2021, it became China’s first city commercial bank with total assets exceeding Rmb3 trillion ($472 billion).
Perhaps more importantly, the Beijing-based bank has been able to tap into a vast pool of potential clients, comprising some of the mainland’s wealthiest high net-worth individuals, while emphasizing the development of its business in economically advanced regions such as the Pearl River Delta and the Yangtze River Delta. This two-fold approach gives it a competitive edge.
In 2020, Bank of Beijing consolidated its wealth-management and private-banking departments as part of a wider shake-up of its retail business. Since then, the firm has continued to expand its private-banking franchise.
With assets under management fast approaching Rmb150 billion, Bank of Beijing Private Banking recorded a 19.4% increase in AuM in 2021. It also saw a 17.4% annual rise in the number of clients, which had already surpassed 10,000 in early 2021. The numbers do not take into account Bank of Beijing’s more than 700,000 wealth management clients (who have a much lower barrier to entry than private banking clients) or their AuM.
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