Guosen: Bank wealth management scale increased significantly, transforming to "quality enhancement" after 26 years.

Guosen released a research report stating that the banking wealth management industry is in a key stage of transitioning from "expansion in scale" to "improvement in quality" by 2026. The future development path is clear: on the liability side, stable and long-term funds will be obtained through product innovation; on the asset side, profit dilemmas will be solved through strategic expansion and external cooperation; in terms of industry structure, centralization and differentiation will be long-term themes. The main points of Guosen are as follows: 1. Significant growth in scale, meeting the demand for "moving deposits" and stable wealth management needs In the macro background of deepening interest rate liberalization and continuous decline in deposit rates, the stability and low volatility of bank wealth management make it an important destination for residents' savings. The size of the wealth management market continued to grow against the trend in 2025, reaching 33.29 trillion yuan, an increase of 11.15%. This shows that despite pressure on returns, customers have a huge and rigid demand for products that exceed deposit returns and have lower volatility than fund products. Wealth management has become a key tool for banks to maintain customers and respond to financial disintermediation. 2. Decline in central profits, forcing expansion of asset boundaries to solve the "asset shortage" The low interest rate environment and shortage of high-quality fixed income assets have led to a systematic decline in wealth management returns. By 2025, the average yield of wealth management products had dropped to 1.98%. This not only reflects the objective result of market conditions but also forces wealth management companies to break out of the traditional "pure fixed income" comfort zone by expanding their asset boundaries to solve the "asset shortage". The future core of competition will shift from single yield rates to risk-adjusted returns, forcing wealth management companies to enhance their multi-asset allocation capabilities to maintain product attractiveness. 3. Seeking product innovation, extending term and enriching strategies are core directions To match better assets and improve customer experience, product innovation is unfolding along two dimensions: first, extending the term: the average term of closed-end products has significantly increased (to 322-489 days), with products over 1 year accounting for 70.87%. This helps lock in liabilities, reduce subscription and redemption impacts, and create conditions for allocating low-liquidity assets such as equities, convertible bonds, Reits; and second, enriching strategies and scenarios, leading institutions are laying out "multi-asset, multi-strategy" strategies, covering quantitative neutral, derivatives, etc.; while also expanding scenarios such as retirement wealth management, wealth management FOF, aiming to achieve differentiation competition through refined strategies and customer groups. 4. Increasing industry concentration, sales channels play a key role The industry is showing a pattern of "dominance by wealth management subsidiaries, exit of bank asset management departments". The market share of wealth management companies has exceeded 92%, with 59 small and medium-sized banks exiting the market in 2025. In the future, the industry predicts that wealth management licenses are likely to be relaxed, but small and medium-sized banks lacking research and system strength will find it difficult to participate in competition, and the number of participants will continue to decrease. At the same time, distribution channels (especially those covering the lower-tier markets) have become the core of channel growth, with leading wealth management companies expanding their market share further with brand and channel advantages, intensifying the Matthew effect. 5. Deepening cooperation with public funds, transitioning from "competition" to "cooperation" The relationship between bank wealth management and public funds is increasingly moving towards cooperation and mutual benefit. In 2025, wealth management increased its allocation to public funds, with a share of 5.1%. This trend stems from two major needs: on the one hand, it reflects the need for stable net asset value, i.e., smoothing the volatility of wealth management portfolios through the allocation of bond funds, neutral strategy funds, etc. On the other hand, it reflects the need to increase returns, i.e., leveraging the equity research advantages of public funds to indirectly participate in the stock market through forms such as FOF/MOM, bridging their own shortcomings. This "competitive cooperation" relationship allows bank wealth management to focus on large asset allocation and customer retention, while public funds leverage their supply advantages in specialized products.