China Everbright Bank stated it is "steadily planning" AIC, and has previously continued to explore "investment-loan linkage".
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The fourth joint-stock bank AIC may already be on the way.
On December 22, China Everbright Bank responded to an inquiry on its investor interaction platform about whether it meets the requirements to initiate the establishment of a Financial Asset Investment Company (AIC), clearly stating, "We will continue to strengthen communication with regulatory authorities and steadily plan the relevant application work."
The bank said it will fully leverage its advantages in product innovation and integrated service capabilities in the sci-tech finance field, continuously promoting the synergy between equity investment and loans for tech companies, and further improving the quality and efficiency of serving the real economy.
In March 2025, regulators further supported national banks to establish AICs, expanding the equity investment pilot from cities to provinces, enabling dual expansion in both establishment and business scope for AICs;
To date, a total of 8 bank-affiliated AICs have officially commenced operations.
AICs under three major joint-stock banks – China Merchants Bank, Industrial Bank, and China CITIC Bank – have successively launched operations since November, with registered capital of RMB 15 billion, RMB 10 billion, and RMB 10 billion respectively;
At the end of October, Postal Savings Bank also announced approval to establish an AIC, though it has not yet officially opened.
AIC May Expand Again
As a stepping stone for banks to open up mixed operation channels, today's AIC business is no longer limited to debt-to-equity conversions, further expanding into direct equity investments which have been strictly limited for commercial banks;
This gives banks holding such licenses the convenience of direct equity investment via AICs, avoiding the cumbersome process of indirect investment through subsidiaries or via licensed overseas subsidiaries.
In comparison, all three joint-stock banks whose AICs have been approved have their own strengths in equity investment.
China Merchants Bank's advantage lies in its rich experience and seasoned team.
Prior to establishing the AIC, the bank had already made indirect equity investments through its Hong Kong subsidiary, CMB International, via private equity management;
In 2024, among CMB International’s overseas private equity products, four projects were successfully listed and exited, and four domestic projects successfully IPO'd. In the future, some staff of CMB Jintou may come from CMB International.
Industrial Bank’s advantage is its abundant project resources.
The bank’s tech enterprise loan volume is among the top in the industry, enabling deep integration of industry and finance via the AIC;
On the day Industrial Bank Investment was launched, it signed strategic cooperation agreements with four investment institutions, including Fujian Financial Investment, and project cooperation agreements with twelve enterprises, with an intended total amount exceeding RMB 10 billion.
China CITIC Bank’s core competitiveness is its group synergy effect.
As a key component in CITIC Bank’s integrated operations, CITIC Jintou will rely on CITIC Group’s full financial licenses, join the “CITIC Equity Investment Alliance” ecosystem, and enhance full-chain services including fundraising, investment, management, and exit.
Xinfeng has noted that China Everbright Bank also has practice in equity investment, with both its wealth management subsidiary and overseas subsidiaries involved in related business, especially achieving notable results in the “investment-loan linkage” collaborative model.
For example, Everbright Wealth Management is at the forefront of the industry in its exploration of warrants.
This business involves the parent bank providing loans to sci-tech enterprises and obtaining the option for equity investment at a specific future time via agreement;
"Debt + Options" both meets the early financing needs of enterprises without excessive dilution of equity, and provides wealth management funds the chance to share in the high-growth dividends of such enterprises.
In 2023, Everbright Wealth registered its first batch of warrant projects at the Beijing Equity Exchange, and the next year became the first bank wealth management subsidiary to carry out warrant registration and custody on the Shanghai warrant service pilot platform;
Its pioneering “Sunshine Zixinxiang” series of private equity products have embedded warrant projects, with funds directed to "specialized, refined, distinctive and innovative" enterprises.
As of the end of November 2025, Everbright Wealth had signed warrant cooperation agreements with over 280 sci-tech enterprises.
Its Hong Kong subsidiary, Everbright International, also has relevant experience.
In mid-2024, Everbright International revealed it had participated as an equity investor in the group's first "bank-securities-investment collaboration" warrant option project, investing in Yuedong New Energy’s equity financing;
According to announcements, Yuedong New Energy authorized Everbright International to exercise warrants in one or more agreed ways, and also authorized Everbright International to transfer the warrants to Everbright Group subsidiaries or to private equity funds managed by the aforementioned parties as agreed.
If the AIC license is granted in the future, China Everbright Bank will also welcome an even broader space for “showing its skills” in equity investment.
Empowering the Sci-Tech Innovation Ecosystem
In recent years, China Everbright Bank's development path has been anything but smooth.
Since 2022, the bank's revenue has continued to decline, and profit, though showing some fluctuations, has only seen rare growth thanks to provisioning write-backs.
Since 2020, the total provisioning by the bank has generally shown a downward trend, except for a reversal in 2023.
In the fourth quarter of that year, Everbright considerably increased provisioning, leading to a year-over-year net profit decline of 62.24% for the quarter after hedging, dragging down full-year net profit by 8.96%.
At that time, Wang Zhiheng, who had just completed his first year as President, stated, "The main factor for the net profit drop in 2023 was the increased credit impairment provisioning. This affects short-term profitability, but it's more fundamental for long-term profit sustainability."
With Wang Zhiheng later transferring to Agricultural Bank, Everbright Bank seems to have resumed its path of reducing provisioning.
Xinfeng's calculations show that, after deducting the provisioning impact, the bank’s profit has continued to decline over the past three years;
Frequent reductions in provisioning have led to a provisioning coverage ratio of only 168.92% by Q3 2025, 41.19 percentage points lower than the joint-stock bank average, ranking among the lowest for listed banks (39/42).
During the continued decline in profitability, China Everbright Bank has never given up exploring transformation.
Since 2022, the bank has proposed three guiding indicators: FPA (corporate comprehensive financing scale), AUM (retail asset management scale), and GMV (interbank financial transaction volume), emphasizing the importance of total solutions provided to customers, total managed financial assets, and total transactions in the interbank market;
Replacing the traditional balance sheet indicators with total solution, management, and transaction scales reflects Everbright’s focus on business ecology and its ambition to move from traditional commercial banking toward being a "top wealth management bank."
After 2024, the newly formed team led by Wu Lijun and Hao Cheng proposed “six brands” (sci-tech innovation, wealth, interbank, financial market, investment banking, cloud payments) as the bank’s transformation direction, with a particular emphasis on sci-tech business in its ecosystem, placing the “Sunshine Sci-Tech Innovation” brand as its top priority among the six.
Today, China Everbright Bank has developed a service system covering the whole lifecycle of tech companies, built a “1+16+100” three-level specialized structure, set up sci-tech finance centers at key branches, and provided specialized products.
In the first half of 2025, the bank’s balance of loans to tech companies grew nearly 10% from the beginning of the year, and the number of loan customers increased by 16.91%;
President Hao Cheng disclosed that, by the end of the first half, the company’s loan balance across the whole chip industry chain in China had exceeded RMB 20 billion.
Even without an equity financing license, China Everbright Bank has explored many "investment-loan linkage" models via its wealth management and overseas subsidiaries' warrant businesses;
The biggest advantage of an AIC license is in filling gaps in the bank’s business and using “debt + equity” to provide tailored solutions for tech and start-up enterprises, potentially driving downstream business in loans, settlement, payroll, and more.
At the same time, as regards the “Sunshine Wealth” brand, AICs can also transform the growth dividends of sci-tech enterprises into products, serving the equities assets of high-net worth clients or tapping into quality management teams via equity investment to create new growth drivers for wealth management.
From this perspective, the deployment of an AIC license will be a key move in Everbright’s overall strategy.
However, moving from traditional debt-to-equity business to pure equity investment, AIC institutions still need to confront high capital consumption, difficulties in exit after IPO slowdowns, and weaknesses in professional capabilities due to long-standing debt-centric mentality.
Currently, the management teams for CMB Jintou, Industrial Bank Investment, and CITIC Jintou are basically set:
The chairman of CMB Jintou is CMB vice president Lei Caihua, and the president is possibly Investment Banking Dept manager Zheng Xinying;
The chairman of Industrial Bank Investment is Industrial Bank Xiamen branch president Chen Wei, and the president is Inclusive Finance Dept deputy manager Zheng Rongbin;
The chairman of CITIC Jintou is former CITIC Bank Guiyang branch president Jiang Dongming, and the president is former Shenzhen branch vice president Wu Wei.
If Everbright Bank's AIC is approved in future, who will "take the helm" for the new institution also remains to be seen.
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