Zhengzhou Bank, besieged by old real estate debts, is seeking new opportunities in county areas.
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At the turn of the year in the financial market, two seemingly unrelated events have mapped out the trajectory of Bank of Zhengzhou’s strategic migration:
On one hand, the 1.1 billion yuan real estate loan for the Xitang project resulted in a court victory, but faced with the defendants already deeply mired on the list of dishonest persons, the bank’s claim is very likely to become “paper wealth”; Bank of Zhengzhou also frankly admitted “the loss has long been provisioned.”
On the other hand, its subsidiary rural banks in Junxian and Yanling have successively completed their transformation from village to township banks, further deepening its county-level presence.
Between withdrawal and advance, this city commercial bank rooted in Central China seems to be accelerating its escape from real estate dependency, seeking new growth momentum in counties, which possess stronger anti-cyclical capabilities.
Old Real Estate Debts
On the last day of 2025, Zhengzhou Intermediate Court concluded years of disputes with the first-instance verdict on the 1.1 billion yuan financial loan case between Bank of Zhengzhou and Jinwei Industrial.
According to the verdict, defendant Jinwei Industrial must repay the principal and interest of 1.1 billion yuan within ten days (by January 10, 2026), with Henan Zhongguang City Operation Management, Yongwei Real Estate, Cui Hongqi, Li Wei, Li Lingling, etc. jointly responsible for the debt.
But company registration details show Jinwei Industrial’s paid-in capital is zero, and its core asset, the Xitang project, has already been disposed of through the government’s “guaranteed delivery” mechanism. There are no executable assets, and guarantors Cui Hongqi and Li Wei have long been on the list of dishonest persons.
So, despite a favorable court judgment, Bank of Zhengzhou is still very likely to face the embarrassment of “winning the case but not getting paid.”
The tragedy of the Xitang project is but one slice of Bank of Zhengzhou’s real estate non-performing problems.
In 2020, Zhengzhou’s real estate market was still lukewarm. Cui Hongqi, with land resources from a former boiler factory, and the local developer Yongwei Real Estate hit it off, forming Jinwei Industrial through a joint venture, launching the “Yongwei Jinqiao Xitang” project.
This popular development next to Zhengzhou University quickly became a “ceiling” for the city’s high-tech district thanks to its prime location. But accidents come unexpectedly—
Just three months after the 1.1 billion yuan loan from Bank of Zhengzhou, the project suddenly stalled when its real controller, Cui Hongqi, misappropriated funds.
The local government later intervened in 2024 to guarantee housing delivery, which protected homebuyers’ rights but did not recover the bank’s funds, leaving Bank of Zhengzhou in the awkward position of “winning the lawsuit but losing the money.”
A single project’s loss is bearable, but Bank of Zhengzhou faces a concentrated outbreak of batch real estate non-performing loans.
In just 2024, the bank revealed three major real estate bad debt cases, involving a principal amount of 2.2 billion yuan—already exceeding the previous year’s net profit, severely damaging its profit base.
For example, Xinrong Group, Henan’s first property developer listed in the U.S., has 1.1 billion yuan in outstanding Bank of Zhengzhou loans through its subsidiary, Xinying Real Estate;
The court has ordered Xinying Real Estate to repay principal and interest, but by the middle of 2025, Xinrong Group’s overdue debt totaled 5.926 billion yuan, and its net loss for the first half hit 1.433 billion yuan—virtually losing its debt repayment ability.
The concentrated transmission of developer risks has pushed Bank of Zhengzhou’s corporate real estate non-performing loan ratio sharply upward;
From 2019 to the first half of 2025, its real estate NPL ratio soared from 0.15% to 9.75%.
To ensure asset quality, Bank of Zhengzhou started a “de-real-estating” transformation under pressure:
First, it actively reduced the scale of real estate loans, lowering the share from 13.62% at the end of 2019 to about 5%;
Second, it actively resolved existing risks, suing developers for debt, and in 2024 sold an asset package of about 15 billion yuan at a 66% discount to Zhongyuan Asset Management, which included debts of several sued developers.
By the end of the third quarter 2025, the bank’s NPL ratio had stabilized at 1.76%, 8 basis points lower than the overall level for city commercial banks.
Behind the stabilizing asset quality is a large-scale write-off of bad debts:
From 2022 to 2024, it wrote off or transferred respectively 4.69 billion, 4.77 billion, and 4.054 billion yuan, sharply higher than previous levels;
Profit growth for those years were -24.92%, -23.62%, and 1.39%, with overall profit for 2024 at 1.876 billion yuan, still less than a decade prior;
The “no dividend for years” dispute, triggered by shrinking profit and reduced capital replenishment ability, has sparked extensive debate in the capital market.
Currently, overdue data still shows pressure; by mid-2025, overdue loans reached 21.09 billion yuan, up 135.38% compared to the end of 2020, among which 7.77 billion yuan of loans overdue for over a year have yet to be classified as non-performing.
Chairman Zhao Fei of Bank of Zhengzhou stated that the future will emphasize risk internal controls, focusing especially on credit risk, advancing modularly and building a comprehensive, cross-sectional risk management system.
County-level Breakthrough
Deeply stuck in the real estate quagmire, Bank of Zhengzhou has turned its eyes to the county market with greater potential.
After all, with declining house prices, depreciating assets, and weakened consumer sentiment, lower-tier markets do show stronger resilience compared to urban economies.
Looking back, Bank of Zhengzhou’s engagement with the county economy can be divided into three phases.
The first attempt began in 2009, when Bank of Zhengzhou began establishing branches in counties under Zhengzhou, founding its first county branch and first rural bank, and within two years achieved full coverage of Zhengzhou county branches.
In 2018, it set up a “Precision Poverty Alleviation Leading Group,” positioning county financial markets as a goal under the new five-year plan. Three years later, it added a “Rural Finance Department” under its retail division, professionalizing and systematizing county financial services.
But from a strategic perspective, at this stage Bank of Zhengzhou still largely viewed counties as a part of inclusive finance and rural revitalization, not as a growth reservoir; resource allocation for the lower-tier market was still relatively limited.
It wasn’t until the new leadership team arrived in 2024 that a real turning point appeared:
That year, Bank of Zhengzhou proposed a “county-led high-quality development strategy,” positioning county economies as the bank’s “experimental field,” “growth pole,” and “incubator”, deciding to launch innovative products and mechanisms in counties first.
This established the county market’s core position in the bank’s strategy, showing its importance had moved beyond earlier rural revitalization and inclusive finance initiatives.
It can be seen that Bank of Zhengzhou’s county business has now implemented a “retail + corporate” dual-engine model.
For instance, on the retail side, it expands service boundaries through “going online, going rural, going into communities.”
Strategically, its “Rural Steward” has become core to its retail business philosophy, along with urban, financing, and wealth management, all written into its “customer-centered” operating principle; by optimizing rural service channels and customer experience, it’s gradually forming core competitiveness in county finance.
By the end of 2024, it had developed rural merchant acquisition and diversified card usage through “Agricultural Service Point+” scenario penetration, issuing a cumulative 258,500 Rural Revitalization Cards, up 86,600 compared to the previous year.
Corporate business focuses on “industrial finance + county economy,” cultivating new growth poles through “county-led targeted initiatives.”
For example, every quarter it coordinates with provincial financial and development offices, tailoring policies to local industry features with a “one policy for each county” approach and reserving targeted lending quotas annually;
Among these, Gongyi, as an industrial powerhouse, receives special support for traditional industry upgrading and major project construction; Jiyuan leverages its duty for northwest Henan regional development, gaining help for coordinated regional growth;
County economies like Xingyang, Zhongmu, and Erqi (new and old city coordination) continue to use products such as “Rural Vitalization Loans” to complement newly signed regions, collectively forming a full-scenario financial service network.
Meanwhile, Bank of Zhengzhou plans to establish a high-quality talent development mechanism, encouraging young cadres to work first in county branches, with priority promotion for outstanding performers;
And it’s adjusting benefits: new Chairman Zhao Fei promises to cut management pay by 10% for two consecutive years, redirecting those resources fully to the grassroots level.
We can see that since 2025, Bank of Zhengzhou’s credit resources have further shifted from real estate to counties:
By the end of the third quarter 2025, the bank’s credit structure kept improving, with real estate lending down nearly 7 billion yuan from the end of 2023, and loans to agriculture/county areas, manufacturing, and green finance growing faster than the bank’s overall pace.
Yet the migration path is by no means smooth.
On one hand, the wounds from real estate have not fully healed, as relevant NPL ratios edged up again in the first half of 2025;
On the other, while county finance is a blue ocean, its high service costs and lack of credit data raise requirements for the bank’s fine-tuned operations and risk pricing. To grow in lower-tier markets, Bank of Zhengzhou must also face direct competition from local rural commercial banks and similar institutions.
Whether the bank can fully shake off the shadow of real estate and accelerate growth in the county market remains to be seen in time.
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