Average salaries at China’s big four state-owned banks have surpassed the quarter million yuan threshold, yet levels of remuneration for senior executives lag far behind those provided by the big five insurers.
Data from East Money (东方财富) Choice indicates that all four of China’s big state-owned banks (Agricultural Bank of China, Bank of China, China Construction Bank, and ICBC) provided average annual salaries of above 260,000 yuan in 2018.
CCB leads the pack in terms of remuneration, providing an average annual salary of 296,000 yuan.
Choice data further indicates that all four of China’s big state-owned banks as well as all of the big five A-share insurers including China Life (国寿), Ping An Insurance (平安), China Pacific Insurance (太保), New China Life (新华) and the People’s Insurance Company of China (人保) employ over 240,000 staff.
People’s Insurance and New China Life provided average annual salaries of 229,000 yuan and 228,900 yuan respectively in 2018, while at Ping An the average remuneration level was 177,500 yuan – the lowest out of the big four state-owned banks and the big five insurers in China.
Ping An is host to the largest staff team, however, at 376,900 employees, and most amply rewards its senior executives, with total salaries for directors and supervisors standing at 74.4218 million yuan in 2018.
China’s top insurers in general provide far more lavish remuneration to senior executives than the country’s big state-owned lenders.
China Life provides the lowest amount of remuneration to its directors and supervisors amongst the big five listed insurers, at 16.817 million yuan in total in 2018.
In sharp contrast CCB, which most amply rewards its senior executives out of the big four Chinese banks, provided directors and supervisors with total salaries of just 11.6731 million yuan in 2018.
At Agricultural Bank of China and Bank of China total salaries for directors and supervisors were under the 10 million yuan threshold, at 6.5203 million yuan and 8.0381 million yuan respectively.
Out of the big four state-owned banks the most richly rewarded senior executive in 2018 was Xiao Wei (肖伟), chief auditor at Bank of China, whose pre-tax remuneration was 1.1658 million yuan.
Xiao’s remuneration nonetheless lagged behind that for 57 senior executives at China’s big five insurers.
Chief risk officers are amongst the most well-paid executives at Chinese banks, with Bank of China’s Fan Yuehan (潘岳汉), Agricultural Bank of China Li Zhicheng (李志成) and ICBC’s Wang Bairong (王百荣) and CCB’s Liao Lin (廖林) earning 1.1657 million yuan, 1.1639 million yuan, 1.1356 million yuan and 869,000 yuan respectively in 2018, putting them second, third, fifth and ninth amongst China’s senior banking executives.
As fintech sweeps China’s financial sector IT and digital executives command increasingly thick premiums.
China Life’s chief digital officer Yang Xiaoling (杨晓灵) obtained 2.377 million yuan in pre-tax remuneration in 2018, while Zhao Jun (赵军), chief IT officer at People’s Insurance, obtained pre-tax remuneration of 2.446 million yuan.
Bank of China’s chief information officer Liu Qiuwan (刘秋万) reaped pre-tax remuneration of 551,800 yuan in 2018.
