China’s biggest municipal bank has just grabbed approval from financial regulators for its wealth management subsidiary to commence official operation.
On 4 November Beijing’s municipal banking and insurance regulator announced that it had given its approval for Bank of Beijing (BOB) Wealth Management (北银理财) to commence operation.
BOB Wealth Management has registered capital of 2 billion yuan, with Bank of Beijing fully subscribing for this amount on a one-time basis using cash.
The business scope of BOB Wealth Management includes: the public issuance of wealth management products to unspecified public demographics; engaging in investment and management with assets entrusted by investors; issuing non-publicly offered wealth management products (WMPs) to qualified investors, and wealth management advisory and consulting services.
Bu Yanhong (步艳红), formerly the securities general manager at Postal Savings Bank of China (PSBC) and general manager of PSBC’s wealth management subsidiary, has obtained approval to serve as the chair of BOB Wealth Management.
BOB first commenced wealth management operations in 2004, and in 2013 became one of the first 11 Chinese banks to obtain approval to participate in net value wealth management plan trials. Since then its Jinghua Yuajian (京华远见) and Jinghua Huiying (京华汇盈) products have proven especially popular with Chinese investors.
In 2021 BOB accelerated reform of its wealth management operations at the behest of regulators, as the transitional period for China’s new asset management regulations drew to a close. According to BOB its principal guaranteed WMPs and expected yield WMPs balance have since fallen to zero, while its net value products account for 100% of outstanding WMPs.
As of the end of June BOB’s outstanding non-principal guaranteed WMPs stood at 208 in total, while its wealth management balance was 355.040 billion yuan, for an increase of 23.27 billion yuan compared to the same period last year.
