Over a Dozen Banks Successively List and Transfer Non-Performing Assets

Since March, more than a dozen banks, including Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Postal Savings Bank, Ping An Bank, Ningbo Bank, and Zhongyuan Bank, have listed non-performing asset packages. In terms of disposal scale, the total principal and interest of non-performing loans proposed for transfer by many banks have reached hundreds of millions of yuan.

Data from the Credit Asset Registration and Circulation Center of the banking industry shows that both large state-owned banks and small- and medium-sized banks have joined this batch disposal of non-performing assets, with overall efforts continuing to intensify.

On March 11, China Construction Bank announced 10 transfers of non-performing loans, involving branches in Zhejiang, Henan, Jiangsu, and others. Among these, the Zhejiang branch’s third phase of personal non-performing assets had a total principal and interest of 276 million yuan, with individual transfer amounts of 33 million, 94 million, and 149 million yuan.

On March 13, China Construction Bank launched another batch transfer of non-performing assets. The targets mainly involved personal consumer loans and personal business loans, covering multiple branches, with total principal and interest amounts of 59 million, 86 million, 145 million, 127 million, 22 million, and 106 million yuan respectively.

Small- and medium-sized banks also issued related announcements. Ningbo Bank plans to transfer personal consumer loan non-performing projects with a total principal and interest of 278 million yuan, with an average overdue period of 245 days; Huaxia Bank’s Beijing branch announced that it plans to transfer personal consumer loan claims totaling 824 million yuan, with an average overdue period of 613 days.

Gao Zhengyang, a special researcher at the Shanghai Commercial Bank Research Institute, told Securities Daily that personal consumer loans and personal business loans have become the core categories for this concentrated disposal because retail credit has rapidly expanded over the past few years. Personal consumer loans and personal business loans have become key drivers of bank growth, with loan balances continuously increasing. Additionally, these loans are mostly credit-based, lacking collateral to mitigate risks.

Gao Zhengyang said that the banks’ active listing of non-performing asset packages reflects their proactive efforts to strengthen asset quality management and accelerate risk clearance. On one hand, the rapid expansion of personal consumer and business loans in previous years has led to an increase in non-performing rates, prompting banks to intensify efforts to clean up these problematic assets. On the other hand, regulatory authorities continue to push banks to improve the efficiency of non-performing asset disposal, with policy support opening channels for concentrated disposal—such as extending non-performing loan transfer pilot programs until the end of 2026 and temporarily waiving listing service fees, effectively reducing disposal costs for banks.

Regarding the impact, Gao Zhengyang believes that for banks, transferring non-performing assets through market-based methods can accelerate risk clearance, improve asset quality indicators, reduce non-performing loan ratios and provisioning pressures, and enhance balance sheet stability. It can also reduce capital occupation and free up credit resources to support more dynamic sectors. From the perspective of the entire financial system, having professional institutions acquire and dispose of non-performing assets can improve overall industry disposal efficiency and promote the development of a more complete non-performing asset market ecosystem.

Yang Haiping, a researcher at the Shanghai Financial and Legal Research Institute, predicts that non-performing asset disposal will become a normalized operation in the banking industry. On one hand, personal consumer loans and personal business loans are expected to continue growing rapidly; on the other hand, regulatory requirements for non-performing loans are becoming more stringent.

Gao Zhengyang further stated that, looking at industry development trends, non-performing asset disposal is expected to gradually become routine. As the pilot policies for non-performing loan transfers become long-term and transfer mechanisms mature, asset transfer will become a regular liquidity management tool for banks. In the future, banks may move away from ad hoc disposal modes toward more steady, normalized supply; the composition of non-performing asset packages will diversify, and disposal methods will upgrade technologically. Pricing mechanisms built on big data will become more refined and precise, continuously improving industry disposal efficiency.

Source: Securities Daily