Analyzing the Technology and Financial Landscape of Joint-Stock Banks from Performance Reports

Ask AI · Why is Industrial Bank leading its peers in the technology finance space?

Who is the “King of Technology Finance” among joint-stock banks?

Technology finance, as one of the key components of the “five major articles” in finance, is an essential support for driving technological innovation, nurturing new quality productive forces, and an important guarantee for achieving high-level scientific and technological self-reliance.

Since 2025, the state has introduced a series of major technology finance policies in rapid succession. The Ministry of Science and Technology, the PBOC, and eight other departments jointly issued relevant initiatives. The State Council General Office released guiding opinions on the “five major articles” in finance, outlining clear directions from multiple perspectives, including improving full lifecycle service systems, expanding financing channels, and strengthening policy guidance, to propel the development of technology finance.

With policy dividends continuing to be released, the banking industry has entered a golden window period for technology finance development. As an important force in serving the real economy, joint-stock banks have increased resource投入 and innovated business models one after another, doing everything possible to seize the early opportunities in technology finance development. A new track for differentiated competition across the industry has been fully opened.

As the 2025 annual reports of listed banks are released one after another, the results of joint-stock banks’ technology finance initiatives are gradually becoming visible. Who will claim the crown of the “King of Technology Finance” among joint-stock banks has also become a focus of market attention.

Racing to strengthen the technology finance track

The 2025 Q4 financial statistics for 2025 released by the People’s Bank of China on January 27, 2026 show that support for the technology sector by the overall financial system continued to increase throughout the year, and the structure continued to improve. As of the end of 2025, the balance of technology loans nationwide was 44.8 trillion yuan, up 11.5% year over year—significantly higher than the growth rate of overall loans. It accounted for nearly 42% of the total loan scale of the “five major articles” in finance. Against this backdrop, each joint-stock bank has made technology finance a core area to focus on for its rollout of the “five major articles,” continuously improving mechanisms and systems, and guiding financial resources to tilt precisely toward the field of technological innovation.

As the joint-stock bank with the largest asset scale, China Merchants Bank specifically established a first-level head-office department in 2025—the Technology Finance Department—further deepening the “six special mechanisms.” Through an all-round layout featuring dedicated policies, dedicated products, dedicated processes, dedicated institutions, dedicated teams, and dedicated assessments, it has strengthened its capability to provide technology finance services. As of the end of 2025, the balance of China Merchants Bank’s technology enterprise loans reached 1.04 trillion yuan, serving 350k technology-related corporate customers.

CITIC Bank has also continued to press ahead in the technology finance arena, focusing on two core areas: expanding loan disbursement and building its service system, to comprehensively improve the quality and efficiency of its technology finance services. As of the end of 2025, its technology loan balance was 1.08 trillion yuan, up 14.75% year over year.

Industrial Bank, meanwhile, turned in an impressive technology finance performance in 2025. According to financial report data, its balance of technology finance loans reached 1.12 trillion yuan, firmly ranking first among joint-stock banks in terms of scale.

Even more noteworthy is that while Industrial Bank achieved steady growth in its technology finance loan scale, it also delivered a dual improvement in asset quality and risk control. Its nonperforming rate on technology finance loans was only 0.85%, well below the bank-wide average nonperforming rate for corporate finance loans. This not only demonstrates strong risk-management capability, but also confirms the maturity and professionalism of its technology finance business development. It closely aligns with the policy requirements for technology finance to be “risk-controllable and financially sustainable.”

Beyond its “double excellence” in both loan scale and asset quality, Industrial Bank has also continued to expand the coverage of its technology finance services. As of the end of 2025, Industrial Bank served 365k technology enterprises. Its financing scale for technology-related industries exceeded 2 trillion yuan, up 15.98% year over year, precisely meeting the national policy goals of increasing financial support for science-and-technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises and hard-tech firms.

A technology finance ecosystem is gradually taking shape

While the scale of technology finance businesses continues to expand, banks have also realized that relying on a single credit service is no longer enough to meet the full lifecycle needs of innovative science and technology enterprises. Therefore, in deepening their technology finance support systems, they have all, independently yet concurrently, proposed the development approach of building a technology finance ecosystem. This aims to comprehensively upgrade the support system for technology finance from points to lines, and from lines to a full面.

SPDB (Shanghai Pudong Development Bank) positions technology finance as its “primary main track,” emphasizing a four-dimensional ecosystem building approach: full lifecycle, whole group, digital intelligence, and globalization. The core is to build a “tropical rainforest–style” technology finance ecosystem—creating an ecosystem characterized by diversified symbiosis, self-sustaining circulation, and collaborative incubation.

China Merchants Bank lists technology finance as a main line for serving the real economy. By deepening the “ecosystem-based, professional, and system-based” build-out, it promotes high-quality development in financial services for technological innovation. To address the needs and characteristics of science-and-technology innovation enterprises at different development stages, China Merchants Bank has carried out a full-dimensional service layout around the four technology innovation cycles of innovative talent, innovative technology, innovative products, and innovative industries. By selecting service scenarios, building a service ecosystem, and innovating service content, it has upgraded and created a matrix-style integrated technology finance service solution to provide full-lifecycle financial support for science-and-technology enterprises.

Guided by national technology finance policy, Industrial Bank established a Technology Finance Working Leadership Group led by its chairman as group leader. It tightly aligns with policy requirements to improve six major systems: performance and evaluation, professional research, product services, ecosystem partners, risk management, and technology support—driving the development of its technology finance business to sync and resonate with national strategies.

What is also worth noting is that Industrial Bank accurately grasped policy directions and set up the first financial asset investment company (AIC) among joint-stock banks. This is highly aligned with the policy requirements that call for the state to expand the pilot scope for AIC equity investment, making it a forerunner in implementing technology finance policies.

Leveraging the advantages of its AIC license, Industrial Bank successfully broke through the limitations of traditional banks relying on a single creditor-based financing model. It connected debt and equity in a coordinated technology finance service model, building a service system that covers startups, growth-stage companies, and mature enterprises across their full lifecycles. It also formed a technology finance ecosystem service circle with multi-party coordination. Within this ecosystem, Industrial Bank works with multiple stakeholders such as industry resources, capital markets, research institutions, and government platforms to provide one-stop integrated financial services for technology enterprises, including debt financing, equity financing, financial advisory, and funds settlement. This precisely meets the financing needs of science and technology enterprises at different development stages and effectively helps hard-tech and specialized, refined, distinctive, and innovative enterprises solve financing challenges.

Building a value bank

As the sustained implementation of the “five major articles” in finance continues, more and more banks have deeply realized that technology finance is not only an important lever for serving the real economy, but also a “growth engine, stabilizer, and moat” for banks to build a value bank. By providing professional, systematic, and ecosystem-based financial services to science-and-technology enterprises, banks can continuously optimize their asset structure, improve customer-group quality, expand fee and low-capital income, strengthen their differentiated competitive advantage in the market, and ultimately help themselves achieve the goal of building a value bank with coordinated development across quality, returns, scale, and structure.

On the foundation of continuously deepening its traditional strengths, Industrial Bank has proactively aligned with the broader trends in financial development and the needs of the real economy. It has pushed for core business advantages to expand and upgrade. Starting from the original “three business cards” of green finance, wealth banking, and investment banking, it has upgraded to “four business cards”: technology finance, green finance, wealth banking, and investment banking. By refining specialized and distinctive businesses, it has continuously strengthened its core operating capabilities and built a value bank.

At the performance briefing session, Industrial Bank’s chairman Lü Jiijin made it clear in his remarks: “The value bank has clarified its strategic goals. All business and production activities ultimately aim to create value. We will build a value bank with a clear, outspoken commitment and strive for first-class performance.”

The goal of building a value bank has made investors feel the “practical benefits” firsthand. Industrial Bank’s share price rose 15.04% throughout 2025, with the gains ranking among the top group among listed banks. Its full-year dividend payout ratio increased to 31.02%, for 16 consecutive years of growth.

Ping An Bank also clearly stated in its 2025 annual report that the bank will take value growth as its core, return to a track of high-quality growth, and build a value bank that combines resilience, effectiveness, and long-term competitiveness. It will shift its development model from scale expansion to quality improvement, from short-term game-playing to long-term value creation, and use the “five major articles” as an important lever to continuously optimize both its asset structure and customer-group composition.

It is worth noting that, standing at a new starting point for financial services to support technological innovation, joint-stock banks compete in the technology finance arena and become core practitioners in rolling out the “five major articles” in finance and building value banks. Promoting technology finance is not only the inevitable choice for joint-stock banks to respond to national strategies, but also a key move to break through their development bottlenecks and achieve transformation and upgrading.

Industry insiders believe that from Industrial Bank upgrading technology finance to become its fourth business card, to China Merchants Bank, CITIC Bank, SPDB, and others building distinctive service systems, joint-stock banks’ exploration represents a return to the fundamentals of serving the real economy. In the future, only by closely aligning with national strategies, going deep into the needs of science and technology innovation, controlling risks with professional capabilities, and improving services with an ecosystem mindset, can banks go steady and far in the technology finance track. By enhancing the “five major articles” with high-quality development in technology finance, it can make the building of a value bank a solid support for serving the overall development priorities of the country.