Retirement financial planning has resumed and expanded, intensifying the competition for long-term funds.

After nearly three years of dormancy, retirement financial planning is reopening its window for product expansion.

Recently, market expectations for a new round of expansion of pension wealth management have continued to rise. There are reports that wealth management companies that meet regulatory requirements are successively advancing qualification applications, system upgrades, and product preparation.

According to industry insiders, several wealth management companies that have not yet been included in the pilot list for pension wealth management have submitted relevant qualification applications to regulators. Currently, the qualifications of the new batch of institutions are still in the approval stage, and there is no clear news of approval yet.

"We have also applied for qualifications, but they are all still under review. I haven't heard of any company that has received approval yet," said a person from a joint-stock bank's wealth management subsidiary. "It is not convenient to disclose specific product arrangements at this stage."

Once the new list of institutions is finalized, pension financial management will see its first substantial expansion in product supply since 2023.

Three years have passed, and the market environment for retirement financial planning has changed significantly.

In the early pilot phase, the industry focused on which institutions would be eligible to issue products; now, with the continuous expansion of pension financial products, competition has extended to the level of products and investment capabilities.

After obtaining their entry ticket, wealth management companies will have to compete with insurance companies, mutual funds, and savings bonds for the same batch of long-term pension funds.

Expansion enters waiting period

The pilot program for retirement financial management began in 2021, and subsequently gradually formed a "10+1" pattern consisting of 10 bank wealth management subsidiaries plus BlackRock and CCB Wealth Management.

Policy boundaries will be further opened up in 2025.

In October 2025, the State Financial Regulatory Commission issued the "Notice on Promoting the Continuous and Healthy Development of Pension Wealth Management Business," expanding the pilot areas for pension wealth management to the whole country. The list of pilot institutions was also expanded from the original list to include wealth management companies that meet the conditions of having been in operation for more than three years, having prudent operation and management, and having strong long-term investment and risk management capabilities.

The policy also clarifies that if a wealth management company participates in both the pilot program for pension wealth management products and the personal pension wealth management business, newly issued pension wealth management products can be automatically included in the list of personal pension wealth management products.

This opened up the pension financial management business to more wealth management companies, but the supply of products did not increase accordingly.

From 2021 to 2023, a total of 51 pension wealth management products were issued, and the number of products has not increased since then. As of the end of June 2026, the scale of the pilot pension wealth management products exceeded RMB 106.6 billion, with approximately 466,000 investors.

For wealth management subsidiaries that were not included in the original list, the new round of qualification approvals means that their pension financial product lines are further completed.

Against the backdrop of declining returns on traditional wealth management products and a general search for stable long-term funds in the industry, pension funds, with their longer maturity and relatively stable redemption, are more attractive to wealth management companies.

However, opening up the qualification process can only solve the problem of product entry. Whether it can truly achieve scale depends on product profitability and long-term investment capabilities.

scrambling for pension funds

Compared to the initial pilot phase in 2021, the current financial services market for elderly care is significantly more crowded.

With the full implementation of the personal pension system, savings deposits, commercial pension insurance, public funds, wealth management products, and savings bonds have gradually entered the scope of personal pension investment, and various institutions have begun to compete for long-term pension funds.

As of the end of June this year, there were 321 individual pension funds, with products gradually expanding from pension target FOFs to index funds, index-enhanced funds, and ETF-linked funds.

Currently, there are hundreds of annuity insurance products on the market, covering exclusive commercial pension insurance, personal pension insurance, and other businesses. Some institutions have also extended their products to medical care, nursing care, and senior living community services.

In June of this year, savings bonds were also officially included in the personal pension product system.

Within this product tier, the traditional advantages of bank wealth management remain stable returns and bank distribution channels, but this positioning is facing new pressures.

The returns on retirement investment products have been under pressure this year. As of September 11, the average annualized return on retirement investment products this year was approximately 1.64%, lower than the average level of approximately 2.09% for all investment products in the market.

The underlying constraints come from the asset side.

Retirement financial planning typically focuses on bonds, deposits, and non-standard assets as its main investment targets, using longer lock-up periods and smoothing fund mechanisms to reduce net asset value volatility. However, as the central level of bond yields declines and high-yield non-standard assets decrease, the return potential offered by fixed-income assets continues to narrow. Recently, some products have even been withdrawing funds from smoothing funds to replenish net asset value.

Currently, among the 51 pension wealth management products, bond assets account for more than half, non-standard assets account for about 11.9%, public funds account for about 13.6%, and equity assets account for only about 5%.

Low equity positions help control volatility but also limit long-term return elasticity.

This makes the shortcomings of wealth management companies even more prominent.

Mutual funds are more mature in equity investment and multi-asset allocation, while insurance institutions possess long-term liabilities, protection functions, and pension service systems. Wealth management companies have banking channels and a large base of stable clients, but their long-term equity investment capabilities are still under development.

In the past, bank wealth management excelled at providing a relatively stable return experience between deposits and funds. However, with the continuous expansion of pension financial products, this middle ground is becoming increasingly crowded.

Following this new round of expansion, the focus of competition in retirement financial planning will shift from qualifications and the number of products to long-term asset allocation, equity investment, risk control, and customer service capabilities.

Relaunching products is just the beginning.

What truly determines how far retirement financial planning can go is whether financial companies can provide sufficiently attractive long-term returns on the basis of stability.

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