The number of A-share rural commercial banks listed in China is expected to increase, with larger-scale lenders set to make a return to domestic bourses.
Securities Daily reports that seven out of China’s 32 listed A-share banks are currently rural commercial lenders, accounting for over 20% of the total.
Most of these listed rural lenders are smaller scale banks, while the majority are also situated in the coastal province of Jiangsu. Until now large-scale rural commercial banks situated in first-tier cities have remained outside the ranks of A-share companies.
The situation is set to change with two of China’s biggest rural commercial banks – Chongqing Rural Commercial Bank (重庆农商行) and Shanghai Rural Commercial Bank (上海农商行), planning A-share listings.
Chongqing Rural hopes to list on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, issuing no more than 1.357 billion A-shares comprising 11.95% of post-issuance capital.
The central Chinese lender originally listed as a H-share company in Hong Kong in 2010, and is China’s leading rural commercial bank ahead of Shanghai Rural Commercial and Beijing Rural Commercial.
As of the end of last year its total assets were 950.618 billion yuan, while domestic media reports peg them at in excess of one trillion at present.
In 2018 net profits attributable to the parent company were 9.058 billion yuan, for YoY growth of 1.37%, while the non-performing loan ratio was 1.29%, for an increase of 0.31 percentage points compared to the start of the year.
On 25 June Shanghai Rural obtained approval from the Shanghai-office of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) for an A-share listing of 2.893 billion securities.
Shanghai Rural’s total assets were 833.713 billion yuan as of the end of last year, for an increase of 3.94% compared to the start of 2018.
The bank’s net profits attributable to the parent company were 7.308 billion yuan in 2018, for a YoY increase of 7.96%, while as of the end of last year the NPL ratio was 1.13%, for a decline of 0.17 percentage points compared to the start of the year.
