Nearly 600 products announced “early exit” within the year; banks proactively streamline wealth management to prevent asset-liability scale inversion.

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The bank wealth management market is undergoing a significant clearing of existing products.

According to statistics from the hub, as of May 29, a total of 152 wealth management products have been terminated early this May, an increase of 181.48% year-on-year; looking at a longer time frame, the number of products terminated early this year has reached 590, with a year-on-year increase close to 80%.

Behind the rapid rise in the number of early terminations is a concentrated adjustment occurring as the bank wealth management industry shifts from scale expansion to optimizing existing products.

In the past few years, with the advancement of wealth management net value transformation and the accelerated establishment of wealth management subsidiaries, the number of market products has continued to grow. In order to meet different risk preferences and investment needs, institutions have intensively launched differentiated strategy products, continuously expanding their product systems.

By the end of the first quarter of 2026, the total number of existing wealth management products in the market reached 48,000, an increase of 18.23% year-on-year.

However, against the backdrop of a continued low interest rate environment and relatively limited supply of quality assets, the rapid growth in product numbers did not bring balanced allocation of funds. As investors increasingly prefer stable, large-scale top products, some small and medium-sized products have gradually faced difficulties in fundraising and continued redemption.

According to the recent announcements disclosed by various wealth management subsidiaries, product scale falling below the contract threshold has become one of the main reasons for early termination.

For example, some fixed income and mixed products under China Post Wealth Management, CMB Wealth Management and other institutions triggered termination clauses as their product shares fell below 100 million for consecutive trading days, as stipulated in the prospectus.

For managers, as product scale continues to shrink, fixed costs such as custody, valuation, operation, and information disclosure become difficult to dilute effectively. Continuing operations is not only unlikely to form a scale effect, but may also erode investor returns.

Wealth management products themselves have certain economies of scale. When product size is too small, managers not only find it difficult to allocate assets sufficiently, but also to participate in asset transactions with investment thresholds, which may ultimately affect investment efficiency.

Besides passive liquidation, early profit-taking constitutes another exit path.

In recent years, many wealth management subsidiaries have launched closed products with "target profit" mechanisms. When net asset value reaches a preset profit target, managers are entitled to terminate early and pay returns to investors.

For example, in the context of strong bond market performance this year, Bank of China Wealth Management, Everbright Wealth Management and other institutions have products that were terminated due to reaching the target yield ahead of schedule.

For managers, promptly realizing profits after achieving set profit targets helps lock in investment results and avoid subsequent profit reversals due to market volatility.

Although scale liquidation and target profit-taking appear to be two completely different situations, what they reflect is the same industry logic—the bank wealth management industry is leaving behind the expansion stage driven by large numbers of products.

In the net value era, the direct linkage between product performance and fund flows is more pronounced.

Investors can observe net value changes in real time and vote through redemption behavior. This continuously compresses the survival space for products that lack features, deliver mediocre performance, or are too small in scale, while funds increasingly concentrate on top products and dominant strategies.

Meanwhile, the limited supply of quality assets in a low interest rate environment makes the issue of too many products competing for the same type of assets more prominent. Once product scale continues to shrink, managers face declining asset allocation efficiency and rising difficulty in portfolio management, and may even encounter mismatches between product scale and underlying asset allocation requirements.

From this perspective, this round of early terminations does not necessarily indicate rising industry risk, but rather resembles an active optimization of existing assets. By compressing tail-end products, consolidating overlapping strategies, and increasing resource concentration, wealth management subsidiaries can further tilt their research, risk control, and operations resources towards core products.

For investors, early termination may disrupt existing capital arrangements, but it also means industry resources are being concentrated onto more competitive products.

As bank wealth management enters a high-quality development stage in the future, the importance of product quantity growth is diminishing, while product quality and long-term performance are becoming the key factors that determine competitiveness.

Risk Warning and DisclaimerThe market has risks and investment requires caution. This article does not constitute personal investment advice and does not take into account the specific investment objectives, financial situation, or needs of individual users. Users should consider whether any opinions, views, or conclusions in this article are appropriate for their particular circumstances. Investment is at your own risk. ```