Dear investors, analysts, friends from the media, ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Thank you for joining us in the 2022 annual results announcement conference by China Construction Bank. Thank you very much for your support and interest in the CCB. The results announcement conference today is held in Hong Kong and Beijing simultaneously through a video link. This conference is also live-streamed for shareholders, investors, and the public. With us in person in Hong Kong are Mr. Zhang Jinliang, the President; Mr. Wang Bin, Vice President; Mr. Sheng Liurong, Chief Financial Officer. In Beijing are Mr. Cui Yong, Vice President; Mr. Zhih ong; Mr. Li Yun; Mr. Cheng Yuanguo. Today, we also have Mr. Xu Jiandong, Equity Shareholder Representative; and Mr. Wang Yi, Supervisor Representative.
They are with us in the Hong Kong venue. We have Miss Liu Fang, Miss Li Lu, Shareholder Representatives, and Mr. Zhao Xijun, Supervisor Representative. In Hong Kong and Beijing present are also persons- in- charge and personnels from relevant departments of the headquarters. The results of our bank for 2022 have been disclosed yesterday. The results presentations have been published on the bank's website for your review. Before we take questions, Mr. Zhang Jinliang will give a presentation on the business operation of 2022 of the bank. Mr. Zhang, please.
Dear investors, analysts, and friends from the press, good afternoon. Welcome to this results announcement conference. I'd like to express my sincere gratitude for your continued interest, trust, and support. Today, we are here again in Hong Kong, seeing so many old and new friends face to face. I'm very pleased. Next, I'd like to report to you on CCB's overall operation of last year and the focus of our work in the next phase. In the past year, we have thoroughly implemented the decisions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, adhered to the general keynote of seeking progress in stability, insisting on high-quality development, carried out the new development concept precisely, continued to strengthen the customer base and the quality and efficiency of operation, and dealt with risk, challenges, and achieved good operation and financial performance.
By the end of 2022, total assets exceeded RMB 34 trillion, representing an increase of 14.37%. Credit investment and bond investment achieved rapid growth. Total liabilities, RMB 31.72 trillion, up 14.77%. Deposits exceeded RMB 25 trillion, an increase of 11.81%. Net interest margin, RMB 31 million, up. The net interest margin was 2.02% ROA, 1% ROE, 12.27%, comparable to the leading level of the industry. The NPL ratio, 1.38%, down 4 basis points from the beginning of the year. The provision coverage ratio is 241.53%, capital adequacy ratio, 18.42%, resulting a steady increase in asset quality and risk resilience. We have continued to create value for our shareholders.
Since the listing of our H- shares in 2005, CCB has paid a total of RMB 1.0357 trillion in dividends. The board meeting held yesterday recommended a cash dividend of RMB 0.389 per share for 2022 to all shareholders, totally RMB 97.254 billion, a dividend payout rate of 30% in recent years. In the past year, we insisted on strategic leadership, integrating our development with the national development. We continued to cultivate new business momentum with traditional advantages, serving the new development pattern with new financial practices. We explore new modes of support of realistic development, actively participated in rental housing business, and initiated the first rental housing fund in China and build a complete service loop from investment, financing, management, and exit.
We lit the inclusive finance market with a loan balance of RMB 2.35 trillion, up more than 25%, making our bank the largest financial institution in the world in terms of inclusive finance supply. We stimulate business growth potential with financial technology, with agile in responding to business needs internally and empowering social governance externally. We have built the brand of CCB Cloud and accelerated the construction of digital infrastructure. We have built a comprehensive financial service system for rural revitalization. The balance for agricultural loans exceeded RMB 3 trillion, and public loans in counties exceeded RMB 2 trillion, bringing financial liquidity to what revitalize the rural areas. The balance of green loans exceeded RMB 2.75 trillion, an increase of more than 40% and a record high, which strongly supported the green transformation of infrastructure.
Clean energy and clean conservation and environmental protection made CCB a green bank. The digital operation continued to be deepened. The Twin Star ecosystem of mobile banking and CCB Life has begun to bear fruit. The number of mobile banking users reached 440 million. The number of users of CCB Life reached 100 million. We have undertaken the issuance of government consumption vouchers in more than 220 cities, helping to expand domestic demand and boost consumption. Over the past year, we have focused our main business and responsibilities, adhere to serving the real economy, deepening the structural reform on the supply side, and strive to achieve a virtuous cycle and co-prosperity between finance and real economy. First, we continue to increase financial support and implement financial policy in a full and targeted manner, providing support to the economy in the down cycle.
We have added RMB 2.39 trillion in loans, an increase of more than RMB 370 billion year-on-year, and added RMB 935.6 billion in bond investment, and maintained the top position in the market in terms of underwriting volume and subscription ratio of government bonds, providing strong support to the rapid stabilization of the economy. At the same time, we also actively expanded funding channels, enhanced the ability to expand deposits and reduce costs, and maintained the coordinated development of assets and liabilities. Second, we optimized the resource allocation structure. Through strategic layouts, we optimized financial resources to specific areas and improving assessment mechanisms. We support major regional strategies and coordinated development. Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Greater Bay Area, and Chengdu, Chongqing regions have increased their shares in our business.
The credit in central and western and Northeast China have increased more than year on year. The balance of infrastructure loans, RMB 571 trillion, an increase of more than 12%. The balance of loans invested in manufacturing industry is RMB 2.24 trillion, an increase of more than 32%. The balance of strategic emerging industries is RMB 1.47 trillion. We support the stable and healthy development of the real estate market, increase the credit support for high quality property developers, guaranteeing the delivery of building with targeted financial services. Thirdly, we continue to improve the ability to create value by adhering to asset light and capital light strategies, giving full play to the group's multi licenses and enhancing the comprehensive financial service capacity.
We will need to strengthen our services to small and medium-sized customers and long-tail customers and adjust our asset allocation strategy according to the market situation, improve the yield of our assets, striving to expand low cost settlement funds and tap into the revenue potential of refined management. Over the past year, we have adhered to the customer-oriented approach, integrated and optimized our three business segments, corporate, financial, personal, and capital management, to better serve our clients with focus and the strive to create value for our customers. Our corporate finance has been steadily advancing. We built a leading scale and convenient service system for public customers and corporate customers with 9.35 million institutional customers. The amount of non-discounted loans to public customers increased by RMB 1.43 trillion. The personal finance business contributed more value.
We continued to deepen our stratified, grouped, and graded personal customer managed system. Personal customers have reached 739 million, accounting for 56.65%. Personal loans amounted to RMB 82.4 trillion, maintaining its position as the number one bank in retail credit. Personal consumer loans amounted to around RMB 300 billion, up 26%. Personal loans and farmer loans, among other products, have been growing very well. The bank promoted the deep integration of digital services and wealth management, managing nearly RMB 17 trillion in financial assets for personal customers, a record high. The Capital Management business developed steadily. The group maintained its professional and prudent position and enhanced its comprehensive service capabilities. The asset size of its financial market business exceeded RMB 9 trillion. The asset management scale is RMB 5.79 trillion.
The asset under custody is around RMB 19 trillion, maintaining its industry leadership. The group also deepened its financial service system for the elderly and ranked first in the industry for pension wealth management.
Over the past year, we have promoted the improvement of our comprehensive risk governance system and strengthened the three lines of defense of business operations, risk control, compliance, and auditing so that our risk management capabilities have continued to improve and effectively supported high-quality development. We continue to strengthen our credit risk control by adhering to the concept of comprehensive whole process, whole staff, and whole situation, and performed well in key areas with NPL of public loans falling by 19 basis points and the quality of loans in infrastructure, manufacturing, and wholesale and retail sectors further improved. We actively and steadily helped to resolve risks in the real estate sector, and the quality of related goods and services was at a better level in the industry.
Risk classification was prudent and solid, with the overdue rate 35 basis points below the NPL rate and overdue NPL negative price scissors of RMB 74 billion. The risk monitoring and early warning system provided 98% of early warning coverage for large and medium-sized accounts, with an average advance of 29 months, and 87% of early warning coverage for SMEs with an average eight months ahead of time in terms of the warning. Promote early detection and control of credit risk. We strengthened the control of market risk, liquidity risk, cybersecurity risk, and any other new types of risk, and continue to promote the construction of a digital universe compliance system with solid, effectively, and anti-money laundering network and a safe and stable business operations. Over the past years, CCB's business development has been widely recognized.
Behind our achievements, we have benefited from our faithful adherence to the decisions and deployment of the Central Party Committee and the State Council, our thinking and exploration of the laws of economic and financial development, the joint efforts of the group's 380,000 employees, and the support of the companionship of our customers and shareholders. This is the inaugural year of the comprehensive and thorough implementation of the spirit of the 30th spirit. In addition, the 20th Party Congress drew up a grand blueprint to promote the great rejuvenation of the Chinese Nation. After the Two Sessions, Premier Li Qiang attended a press conference and answered questions from the journalists, summarizing the outlook for Chinese economy. It will break winds and waves and sail towards a bright future.
Despite the great uncertainties in the international economic and financial markets, we are confident and full of expectations for the long-term positive future of Chinese economy. CCB will actively seize the vast opportunities in China's modernization process, fully, accurately, and comprehensively implement the new development concept, ride the momentum, and strive to achieve new breakthroughs in quality development. In the new year, we will maintain our strategic determination, deepen our financial initiatives, and promote the convergence of the first and second curves.
We will consolidate our first-mover advantage in housing leasing, strongly support the construction of subsidized rental housing, actively participate in the issuance of rental housing REITs, bring into play the demonstration effect and driving role of housing leasing funds, explore new models of real estate financial services, and contribute to the stable and healthy development of the real estate market, promote the construction of a greater inclusive finance ecosystem, and improve the new digital inclusion model. We will vigorously promote the application of the Hui Dong Ni platform, promote the building of ecology and smooth operation, and consolidate our leading position in the market of inclusive finance, strengthen the empowering role of financial technology, continue to improve our technological governance capabilities, improve our R&D and operation structure system, strengthen our digital operation capabilities, and deepen the integration and development of the Twin Star of mobile banking and CCB Life.
In the new year, we will firmly fulfill our mission and give full play to our strengths to serve the real economy. Construction Bank was born out of construction and has thrived because of it. Wherever there is construction, there is a Construction Bank, and this has been deeply rooted in our DNA. We will continue to enhance our ability to serve the country's construction, continue to increase our credit investment, support the promotion of major national strategies, and to do a good job in supporting the financing of the two new and one priority. We will help develop the basic role of consumption and the key role of investment, accelerate the development of personal consumption credit, effectively meet reasonable housing finance needs, and strengthen resources going in manufacturing, science, technical innovation, green and low-carbon areas.
We will deepen the layout of common prosperity finance, help serve the revitalization of the countryside, actively explore county business expansion models, improve the integrated online/offline service system for the revitalization of the countryside, and promote the expansion and penetration of products and services such as Yunong Express. With the power of financial technology, financial services are seamlessly integrated into the production and lives of urban and rural residents, making financial services a basic right available to everyone and a tool for the public to pursue a better life. In the new year, we will accelerate the construction of a customer group grading stratification and classification management system, deepen group synergies, and comprehensively improve the marketing and the service capacity of our customers as well as deepen the integrated operation. The competition for commercial banks is ultimately a competition for customer service capabilities.
We will continue to improve the group's integrated management system, strengthen the synergy between the parent and subsidiary, the head office and branches, the various business segments, domestic and overseas branches, and the online and offline sector, so as to enhance the overall management synergies and meet the integrated and diversified financial needs of the customers. Deepen the synergy between financing and intelligence. Continue to optimize the layout of assets, drive the development of price setting consultancy, settlement, investment banking and trading business, and accelerate the transformation to light asset and light capital. Strengthen the integration of domestic and foreign currency operations. Effectively consolidate the foundation of foreign currency business capacity. Further enhance the level of cross-border business services and strengthen the ability to participate in international competition. Deepen the balanced development of asset and liabilities. Optimize the allocation of major types of assets and liabilities.
Strengthen the measures to stabilize and increase deposits, balance quantity, price, and risk, and strive to achieve a unified development in terms of quality, structure, scale, speed, efficiency, and security. In the new year, we will enhance our bottom-line thinking, better coordinate development and safety, strengthen market research and judgment, strive to stay ahead of market cycles and risk curves, firmly guard the bottom line of risk compliance. We will always respect and follow the laws of financial development, insist that our business operations are bounded by our risk management capabilities, and always give top priority to improving the quality and efficiency of our development. We will continue to optimize and improve our comprehensive, active, and intelligent modern risk management system, improve the group's unified credit risk management system, and ensure that the core indicators of asset quality are in a reasonable range.
We will pay close attention to financial market fluctuations and international developments and guard against new types of risks and external shocks. Continuously strengthen internal control compliance and AML capacity building to effectively protect the rights and interests of financial consumers. Standing at a new historical starting point, we will ride on the wind of the era of Chinese modernization, create a better future with practical work, and continue to create greater value for our clients, shareholders, and society. Thank you all.
Thank you, Mr. Zhang. Now we will take questions. This conference is taking place in both Hong Kong and Beijing. We have a lot of investors joining us, so we will alternate questions between Hong Kong and Beijing conference rooms, so more analysts will have opportunities to ask questions. We suggest that you limit your questions to only one each time, and before that, please identify yourself and your affiliation. We will start from the questions in Hong Kong. The gentleman on the third row.
Thank you for the opportunity. My name is Richard Xu. I come from Morgan Stanley. Congratulations on the stable performance of CCB. Last year was full of challenges, but despite that, most of the indicators have shown very steady growth. What are the drivers behind this stable performance? In 2023, the economy is becoming stable, and it's moving upwards.
Do you have any other new plans and new strategies to address that? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Xu. In 2022, faced with complex situations, the CCB implemented the deployment of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council and achieved a stable and excellent business performance. Last year, net profit was up by 6.33%. ROE maintained at a co-comparable level. The first-tier capital has increased in stability. NPL ratio is down steadily, and the provision level is on the rise. Our liquidity risk indicators have been in line with the regulatory requirements. Last year was a difficult year. We have strengthened the balance between security, liquidity. This is hard-won.
Faced with the risks in the macroeconomy, we've been committed to our responsibility as a major bank and enhanced our credit expansion, stabilizing the economy. LPR was down last year, and there was some negative impact. Internally, our net interest spread was down by 11 basis points, but the balance of interest-bearing assets is up by 11.91%. The net interest income is up by 6.2%, which is satisfactory. In 2023, I believe the banking industry will embrace a better economy. The new leadership of the Chinese government aims to expand domestic demand through reform and innovation and address and mitigate possible risks. This combo of policies will create better opportunities to the banking industry in China.
In 2023, we will fully implement the spirit of the 20th National Party Congress and serve the real economy by mitigating financial risks and deepening financial reform. We will stick to our main responsibilities and main business, seeking progress from stability, and improve the quality and efficiency of our operation, providing better services to our customers and creating greater value to shareholders. I'd like to focus on some specific areas, especially increasing revenue and reducing cost. In terms of increasing revenue, first of all, we need to maintain the stable progress in net interest income. We have a very high capital adequacy ratio. We will continue to offer greater support to the real economy, so credit expansion and bond investment will rise in a stable and reasonable manner. Our capital adequacy ratio will be enough to for us to do that.
We need to look for better structured business and high efficiency. Last year, the asset size of our bank was nearly CNY 35 trillion. There is some potential for structural reform. Over the years, we have been increasing our efforts to adjust major assets and reduce low interest assets, improving on high interest assets like bonds. Last year, the proportion of these two asset types was up by 0.79%, contributing a lot to business growth. The CCB attaches great importance to retail credit services. Personal loans are 39% in total loan size. Last year, retail loans were not in good markets. Retail loans of our bank maintained very good growth. Mortgage balance was up by CNY 90 billion. Consumer loans and small business loans have achieved 27% and 83% growth respectively.
This year, we will seize the opportunities of economic recovery and increase credit expansion, especially in retail loans. This is about interest income. Secondly, on non-interest income, as you see, last year, bank fees and commissions accounted for 15.31%, making us one of the best-performing banks in the industry. In 2023, we will seize the opportunities of economic recovery and give full play to our advantage of having multiple licenses in bond issuance, consultancy, wealth management, custodian services, credit cards, and consumer loans. We will make a bigger effort.
Other non-interest income other than bank commission income, we will keep a close eye on the changes in equity and bond market and adjust our off-balance sheet and imbalance sheet assets, managing risk exposure well, making sure that we can reduce and minimize the market turbulences and its impact on our non-interest income. On cost, we need to reduce cost and improve efficiency by better cost management. There are three aspects. The first one is asset cost, capital cost. We need to strengthen our thinking of operating like a platform and digitalizing business. We need to build scenarios and building ecosystems, so our financial products can be integrated into customers' life scenarios. We need to strengthen our customer base, both in individual and corporate customers. We offer diversified multiple financial services to customers by offering them. We will receive low cost capital.
We strengthen the stratified and categorization of customer management. There were a few numbers which were covered in the presentation. For example, personal customers reached 739 million. mobile banking, 440 customers. CCB Life saw over 100 million customers. Corporate customers, 9.35 million. RMB settlement accounts, 13.27 million customers. Inclusive finance, 2.53 million customers. We are expanding wealth management business, achieving very good results. Personal customers AUM is nearly RMB 17 trillion, and private banking's AUM reached around RMB 2.25 trillion. The asset management size, including fund, wealth management, trust, pension, et cetera, has reached nearly RMB 600 million. Custodian services have surpassed RMB 19 trillion.
We believe, with the implementation of our strategies and a higher customer base, higher AUM in personal loans and FP total size, our liabilities and capital cost will be improved a lot. That's for capital cost. Another cost comes from business operation. Last year, cost-to-income ratio is 28.25%. A good one compared with other banks. In expenses, we have seen increase in staff expenses and a decline of 5.18% in non-staff cost. We have been very strict in reducing expenses, but we strengthened our investment in strategies and technologies. Last year, we invested RMB 23.3 billion in technology, accounting for 13% in our expenses. In the new year, we will strengthen our efforts to control cost, minimizing regular costs, so we can spare more investments for strategies and technologies as well as custom expansion.
The third one is to reduce the cost of credit services. Credit cost is the highest among all the costs for a bank. The cost was 0.66%, down 1%, making new contribution to the business growth of the bank. In the next year, we need to strengthen risk management, and we need to learn the lessons from the European and U.S. banks which went through some crisis. We need to optimize our risk management system, and we need to adjust our asset allocation strategy dynamically. We need to coordinate credit risks, liquidity risks, and market risks, so we can withstand the test of market cycles and economic cycles and become a balanced stone for national economic development. Thank you.
Thank you. We now pass the floor to Beijing.
Hello. Hi there. I'm from CCTV. We have also noticed that there is What are the credits going into? In addition, considering the current financial situation, what are the credit extensions, the extensions will mainly go into which area?
We have Mr. Cui Yong from Beijing to answer this question.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you for your question. Yes, indeed, we pay attention to credit extension, and credit extension is also a core area of our management work. For the whole of last year for CCB, we have carefully and prudently implemented the party's spirit. On one hand, we need to extend the credit well, and the second, we need to extend it to the right areas. In the last year, we have also realized some very fast credit extensions.
As we have heard, with our fast credit extension, and there is an increase of 12.7%, and the total amount is RMB 2.39 trillion. The scale is really very big. There are two questions in your questions just now. One is on directions, and secondly, which areas are we going into? Let me give you a set of data for 2022, and this will help answer some of your questions. First is in inclusive finance. Again, this is an area whereby our government and our party focuses greatly on. For last year, we have about RMB 470 billion increase, and the speed is 15.29% of increase.
This is a very important area of a credit extension increase, and this has ensured our inclusive finance customers a steady growth. The second is in manufacturing and in green industries. This is an area whereby State Council pays great attention to and is guiding everyone to go into this area. For this area, our growth has exceeded 40%. This area for green loans as well as this sector of growth. You can see that it's faster-growing. Thirdly is in the new industries, our growth has reached 60%. This, again, is a very faster growth. The third area is for the revitalization of the countryside. We have heard that for countryside, revitalization has already exceeded RMB 3 trillion, and the growth has reached 21.8%.
For CCB, this is a huge area of market for us. In addition, the asset quality is very high. The fourth dimension is to play our strength, which is infrastructure. Actually, last year from the central government and State Council, they have also guided very fast for banks to go into infrastructure, and therefore, we focus on the two new and one priority work. This is the area of work that we focus on. For infrastructure, the balance is already at RMB 5.72 trillion. The growth is roughly in line with the group's growth. Number five, this is to support the personal aspirations for a better life. We actively support our citizens for their structural demand as well as upgrading of housing demand.
In addition, we also support consumption upgrading and to support some of our SMEs and micro businesses, and here for personal consumption. It has gone up by 28%, and for mortgages, has gone up by 80%. You can see that all of these figures, it has reflected, whether it is in terms of the growth for volume and the speed, we have really sped up. In terms of targeted extension, we have also realized our targets. In terms of 2023, we have the following areas that we focus on. First is in terms of volume. We need to maintain stable growth. At the moment, we have just rebounded from the pandemic.
The economy is in the early stage of a recovery, as we have said, as a major SOE bank, we need to shoulder our responsibility to continue to help the real economy and to ensure the stable recovery of the economy. You can see that from beginning of this year. Yes, indeed, in terms of the demand for credit is still quite strong. At the moment, the competition in terms of pricing is still quite aggressive, therefore, we need to realize a stable growth. Second, in terms of the rhythm, we need to be faster. We need to look at the real economy's demand. In addition, we have also looked at our previous four quarters of expansion in different areas. Based on this, combining with the need of our customers, and we are investing in a reasonable fashion so that we can move forward.
In the first three months of this year, we can see that actually we are ahead of our peers. In addition, in terms of structure, we will continue to improve our structure, as we have heard from Mr. Zhang, and we will continue to consolidate our strength as a retail bank. In the meantime, for our personal credit, there has been some dampening, and we believe that in the next few months we will see some recovering and perhaps for some of our small farmers and small business and sole proprietary business, and we will see some recovery, and we hope that we can achieve some breakthroughs. On corporate business, we need to be targeted and precise and to look at precision finance. Precision finance is an area that we have focused on.
You have also seen that we have made deployments in all these areas. We will launch new products in precision finance. In terms of manufacturing and green finance, innovation, technology, and on the basis of last year, will continue to grow, and we will continue to push forward the development in these areas. In addition, we also have an area that we have gone in this year, and this is basically looking at the current situation whereby we are trying our best to satisfy the personal aspirations for a better life. This area is mainly for education, health, sports, tourism, et cetera. We are calling this the happiness sector and focus on the well-being of our citizens. Those are my answers for your question. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Cui. Back to the Hong Kong venue. Thank you, Mr. Hu, from UBS.
Thank you, Mr. Zhang, for visiting Hong Kong along with your delegation. I'd like to ask about your asset quality. The asset quality of the bank has maintained a stable situation despite the difficulties in the last year. I'd like to ask about the reasons behind. I guess there were difficulties in different aspects like inclusive finance, but retail business, including mortgage and credit cards, is looking at higher NPL ratio. In this year, which segments do you think will expect some problems that are worth special attention? On top of that, from a provision and credit cost perspective, provision was down 50% compared with last year. How do you look at the possible level of provision in this year? Thank you. Thank you.
Long time no see. Last year, the NPL ratio was 1.38, and the special mention rate was 2.5%. Provision rate 214.52%. There are two things. Number one, CCB has a very prudent and solid categorization of asset categories. Our NPL rate is 1.38, but default rate was 1.03%. The scissors difference is negative RMB 74 billion, it has improved for three consecutive quarters. Our categorization is very stable and solid. Second, on provision, the NPL was RMB 292.8 billion, our provision is above RMB 700 billion, RMB 772 billion. It's 2.5x the NPL, we have sufficient capability to cover current risks, we're fully confident to mitigate possible risks.
In other segments, corporate loans see an NPL ratio of 2.08% down year-over-year. Personal loans see an NPL ratio of 0.55%, which is slightly increased, but it's still at a lower range. You are interested in personal mortgage loans. The NPL ratio is 0.7% and it's up by 0.17% year-over-year, which is up to our expectation, and it hasn't had any impact on the asset quality of the bank in general. As for 2023, the asset quality of the bank is both affected by the real economy and also its own capabilities to control risks. From a macro economy perspective, we are very confident. As the Premier Li said, it will break wind for a bright future.
As for our bank, we believe the bank has always maintained good foundation for internal risk control. In the coming year, we need to strengthen internal risk management and continue to manage our existing loans and other assets and dispose of non-performing loans in a good way. We will safeguard our clean balance sheet like protecting our own eyes. Specifically speaking, in new loans, we will be more careful in customer selection and concentration risk management, so we can invest our credit in the right way. We will adopt a so-called see-through principle. In our group and in both China and abroad, and in subsidiaries and in the headquarters, every type of asset will be under management, adopting the same risk appetite and risk management standards.
We need to make sure that the risks will not be passed through subsidiaries and headquarters, and we need to prevent the implicit concentration risks and cross dissemination of risks between different subsidiaries. In terms of existing loans, we need to give full play to Fintech and continue to strengthen the monitoring system, so we can discover and identify risks as early as possible and dispose of them. As for existing loans, we need to strengthen our operating thoughts to think out of the box in risk management methods. As for promising enterprises, we need to provide active financial support. At the same time, we need to make bigger effort in dispose non-performing loans, adjusting credit structure and offering very good support to the asset management in the future. We are capable of managing different types of risks well.
We believe in 2023, the asset quality will be in a normal range and credit cost will be maintained at a stable level. Thank you.
Thank you. We now go back to Beijing. We have this gentleman in the third row, please.
Thank you. Thank you for this opportunity. This is Zhang Shuaishuai from CICC. I would like to ask with respect to the European and American banks' risk events, what are the impacts on CCB? Second, what are the impact on your business? Thirdly, what has CCB done in this area? Well, we will have Mr. Ji Zhihong to answer this question.
Thank you very much. Actually, the question that you have asked is a question that in the market and a lot of thinkings about what has happened and a lot of reflections.
First of all, in terms of Credit Suisse, we do not have any exposures, the direct impact is very small. Even if we talk about indirect or derivatives, the impact is very limited. Our analysis are as follows. Looking at the market, we can see that the monetary policy, we are not very correlated with the international world, especially in Europe and America. You asked about the spillover effects, our monetary policies are always very stable. In terms of the financial system as a whole, we have very sufficient liquidity. For our financial market, it is operating very smoothly. This is one question. Second question I would like to emphasize, in terms of the group, we continue to adhere to the very robust and stable policies. Just now, Mr.
Zhang has specifically mentioned about this point, I won't go into details. We will continue to make sure that we will consolidate the relationships between the parent and the subsidiary. For overseas business, we continue to focus on our development, and we focus and follow the European and American risks. We look at the duration management, and we look at this with plenty of stress testing. Fed has hiked for quite a while, and our relatively business have maintained very good operation in terms of the duration management, and it is very short durations. In terms of the fluctuations in an international market, we have plenty of capability to cope with this. The third answer is that we look at the management of liquidity and liquidity safety. This is our bottom line.
Overall speaking, for our group and in terms of our business expansion, it is all based on a robust asset, and we always look at the matching of our total volume and assets. Just now we have heard Mr. Zhang talking about continuously improving the structure of our assets. Looking at our liabilities, we have many different channels, and we have many different types of customers. Therefore, this is very stable. In terms of foreign currency, where we continue to manage this with the capital allocations and for overseas banks. In terms of our pricing, and there is a great match for our group. We continue to follow the liquidity management for the systematically important banks, especially for overseas institutions, as well as for the parent company and subsidiaries liquidity management. It is always at a stable and robust level.
All of these are above the requirement of the regulators. You have also talked about the management of market risks. Overall speaking, the management of liquidity and market risks are well correlated. For the group, we continue to adhere to very prudent investment policies, and we talk about, and emphasize on fast response. Whilst exploring our risk management, and, we also have three aspects of importance that we focus on. One is in terms of the total system. We continue to complete the risk system and for our risk control system department, and they will be going into the front line and to understand about the business and to cover all our counterparties. We focus on a comprehensive risk management as well as a whole exiting system.
Secondly, it's also something that we continue to explore, and we have seen good results, which is that we continue to enhance the empowerment of technology to have more rules and to make sure that the traditional risk control is moving into the smart, intelligent risk control. In terms of our risk control, that is in place. Through this new risk control system, and we have established our investment business, and which is helping us to establish our risk management automated warning system, and to help us to manage the front, middle, and back office, and to help us in terms of our price setting, as well as evaluation, and stress testing. This has enhanced our analysis capabilities.
On this basis, we would also like to talk about with the support of this information system and for us in our group, in terms of coping with these different risks, we have established the mechanisms and completed the system, and the system's capability is continuing to be unleashed. In terms of the risk management, timeliness continues to be improved. In the past two years, we have followed very closely, for instance, Credit Suisse, as well as the major loss incurred because of the derivatives trading for CCB. In terms of the hedging business, we have also taken active measures. With the high interest rate going on, with the instability in the financial market, we also see the interest hike by the Fed and its impact on the financial derivatives, and these effects are continuing to spread.
Going forward, we will continue to focus on the macroeconomy as well as the changes in the market, and to do our jobs well, and to make sure that we will hold on to our bottom line and to better coordinate our business, and to ensure that CCB's development is for the long term.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Let's invite a question from friends from the press in Hong Kong.
Good afternoon, management. From Phoenix Television. We know that the downward pressure on net interest margin is a pressure imposed on the Chinese banking industry across the board. What are the implications? What's the outlook for this year? I'd like to know what measures will be taken by the management to boost the level of NIM. Thank you.
Mr. Sheng, thank you for the question. Friends from the press and analysts both asked about the good performance of our operation, but I'd like to take a difficult question you asked. NIM, as mentioned in the presentation, is down by 11%. This is in line with the trend of other banks, but the decline is comparable to other peers. We are doing quite good, actually. The LPR is down, the market rate is down.
These are the two main reasons. LPR last year was down by 15 basis points for one year and 35 basis points for five-year term. There are a few reasons. On asset side, our asset yield is down by 6 basis points. There are two aspects. First, we have committed to our responsibility of serving the real economy. LPR decline will lead to lower interest rates. The income is down by 5 basis points. Market rate was going downwards last year, most of the time, albeit some slight increase in October. The yield of our bonds is down by 6 basis points. On liabilities, the gearing ratio is up by 6 basis points. Our president mentioned in the presentation that we were faced with three pressures. In the economy and among companies and households, people have opted for term deposits and long-term loans.
This is a natural choice of all in difficult position. The cost-to-income ratio is up by 5%. Other banks have changed their interest rates as well. Altogether, there is an impact of 6 basis points. Faced with complex situation, we take the initiative to manage our assets. For example, adjusting the structure of major assets, increasing the proportion of interest-bearing assets, and using derivatives for risk management. With those measures, we have offset by 1 basis point. With our active management, we have withstood the test by improving by 1 basis point. We are not the one doing the best, but compared with other banks, we have maintained a leading position. As for the outlook for 2023, we believe we will still face some downward pressure in the coming year.
Lower LPR will have more implications, especially in the coming year. There will be continuous downward pressure. If you look at the breakdown by quarter, Q1 will be under the biggest pressure because personal loans have higher proportion in Q1, but in Q2, Q3, and Q4, NIM will see their decline go slower. The management is taking that very seriously. We hope that we can improve on our NIM indicator offsetting its decline in three aspects. Number one, on asset, we will continue to structure in an optimized way our assets, adding more high-yield assets and minimizing low-yield assets. In the first two months, we have done that. Those products and services with low yields saw negative growth, so we could allocate more resources in higher yield businesses and products. When serving the real economy, we can still achieve a stable yield.
Secondly, in interest bearing assets, we need to strengthen the management by building scenarios and an ecosystem. With digitalized services, we can offer low-cost settlement funds to customers, both private and corporate customers. We need to strengthen the circulation of funds between upstream and downstream customers. As for personal business, we need to manage existing loans and the greater wealth management business, so more low-cost fund will be deposited in CCB's account in order to reduce interest costs. Second, we are actively managing time deposits with long-term. We consciously reduce the interest rates of these loans, which paid off. Thirdly, as I said last year, we try to use some interest swaps and other derivatives to manage interest-related risks. However, risk management derivatives in mainland China are quite restricted.
Last year, they worked pretty well. This year we want to strengthen our efforts to use interest derivatives to hedge against some interest risks. By strengthening pricing management, we can better manage the interest cost and interest cost. NIM will be... The downward pressure of NIM will be diverted. We hope that the pace will be slowing down.
Thank you, Mr. Sheng. Let's now go back to Beijing, we have this gentleman on the left in third row.
Hello, this is Ma Fengtao from China Renaissance, and I'd like to ask a question about deposits. In the last year, deposits have grown quite well. What are the reason behind this? Going forward, what's the deposit rate? Secondly, in terms of measures, what measures do you have to continue to push the faster growth of deposit? Let's have Mr. Li Yun to answer this question.
Thank you for your question. In terms of the faster growth of deposit in 2022, there are mainly two reasons. The first one is that the government macro policies has increased and strengthened.
Secondly, for CCB, we have adapted to the changes in the market to become very innovative in terms of our deposit structure. In the last year for our deposit, we have RMB 2.4 trillion, it is up by RMB 807 billion. The growth speed is 11% in terms of deposit interest rate, the cost for us and the future trend. Looking at 2022, our deposit cost, we still think that it is still implicit. In the meantime, compared with our peers, we are still ahead of them. There are mainly three features. The first is that for our personal deposit, for interest payment rate, it is decreased, and it is about 1.83%.
It is down by 3 basis points compared with the previous year. This is because we have very intentionally looked at how to better manage the long-term deposit rate. In the meantime, we have also seen the regulators are now perfecting the interest rate of the system and which is why we have seen that for our bank and in terms of the interest that we need to pay out has decreased as a result. Second, for corporate deposits, we predict that it is better than our peers for the last year. We have seen that the corporate business and mainly for the pass account, and it has decreased.
Of course, we have utilized our strength, which is the large customer base. We have used the whole process management of the corporate deposits and the changes in the corporate accounts. We are performing better than our peers. Thirdly, in terms of our deposit structure innovation, this is better for us to manage the deposit cost. For CCB, we have strengthened, for instance, differentiated deposits as well as digitalized deposits management and to help us to launch big wealth management and to focus on the areas whereby we can do better and strengthen our further capabilities. We can see that this has helped us to offset the uptick of the deposit cost. Looking into 2023, we will continue to grasp the opportunities in the market to continue to push forward the high-quality development of deposits, and we are looking at this in three areas.
First is to devise and implement an active deposit growth strategy. We predict that in 2023, the national economy, overall speaking, we will see a recovery. The capital in the market will be reasonable and sufficient, therefore, for us to have this strategy for deposit growth, it is also quite a reasonable one, and we are very actively approaching this. We have felt that the deposit, generally speaking, has increased, and compared with the same period last year, it has gone up further. This is a good opening. Secondly, we continue to improve the deposit models in terms of corporate deposits, and we are synergizing this with corporate loans and to make sure that there is a better linkage and using our platform scenarios and to further expand our corporate business. In terms of personal deposits, there are mainly two ecologies.
One is big wealth, to make sure that we utilize the existing wealth of our customers. The second, to grasp this opportunity of consumption ecology. We need to look at the deposits of the individuals for their consumptions. Thirdly, we will continue to promote the coordination of deposit volume as well as pricing, we will need to see the continuous effect of this licensing for deposits. We will continue to add on more expansion of CASA account and to continue to perfect the term deposit structures. Looking at the first two months for our bank, RMB deposits, the interest payment rate has decreased further. Overall speaking, we are very confident for 2023.
Our deposit business will continue to realize a high-quality growth and to serve the real economy and to provide a very solid foundation for the development of real economy.
Thank you, Mr. Li. Let's invite one more question from the Hong Kong press.
Thank you. From Hong Kong Business Journal. I'm very pleased that we finally have the opportunity to meet with the management in person. After the pandemic, every bank is trying to catch up with fast development. Fintech is one of your development focus areas, and you said that you will invest more in Fintech development. Can you please elaborate on the development plans of your bank on Fintech?
Mr. Wang will answer the question.
Thank you for your interest in our fintech development. CCB has attached great importance to Fintech. In 2008, we came up with a TOP+ strategy. Over five years, we have invested over RMB 100 billion in Fintech. Last year, we invested RMB 22.3 billion, 3.07% in the total operating expenses. R&D and staff costs have risen continuously. We used to have only 7,000 staff members in Fintech segment. Now we have 15,800. Tech talents of CCB are at a leading position of the industry. We have received 1,245 patent applications, making us one of the top banks in this regard. Fintech is one of our three major strategies. Our vision is to build our bank into a professional bank in technology. Without technology, there would not be any finance.
Technology is integrated into every and each link of our bank's business. Digital technologies, as one of the effective means to address financial problems, restructured the credit and financial systems, and it's in line with our philosophy of serving the mass public and offered strong support with strong momentum. CCB will continue to strengthen its capabilities to build a digital foundation. Digital services, we look at more financial innovation. We have a self-owned distributed system. This new system is responsible for serving 183 million customers, one quarter of our total workload. We have built AI capabilities based on different scenarios. We have self-owned AI platform supporting 742 scenarios. For example, the accuracy rate of optical identification of receipts is over 90%.
1/3 of trading services is done digitally, reducing 90% of inquiry and quotation time. On 31st January this year, we published CCB Cloud. CCB Cloud is now under control, and it's operational in every department of CCB. It's one of the representative project of CCB in Fintech. The computing power and services of CCB Cloud puts us at a leading position of the industry. Safety, security, and stability are our priority. We have a multifaceted security system boosting the digital transformation of the bank, concentrating our digital capabilities. Blockchain, big data, and AI strengthen our capabilities in middle office. We hope that CCB can be the cloud platform of choice for our customers. Better Fintech capability can be reflected in supporting businesses outside the bank.
We export our technologies to other industry players as well to support the digitalization of our country, lies in our responsibility as a major bank in China. I'd like to introduce to you our smart governance services. We have made strong progress in smart intelligence governance services. We signed agreements with 27 provincial governments and provided 14 provinces and 13 municipalities with internet plus platforms covering governance and other scenarios. For example, in Yunnan Province, we developed a system where people can do everything on their mobile. In Shanxi, in Chongqing, and in Hunan, we have developed comprehensive service platforms enabled by Fintech for these provinces. We have over 200 million customers, and we have initiated 4 billion pieces of services. We try to build digital government services for local citizens.
We have 40,000 branches, and in every branch, we offer teller services and counters for digital government services. We can cover 8,000 items of services, so people don't have to travel far for handling government services. On top of that, by relying on 444 service points in rural areas and our online application for farmers, we extended our services to countryside, helping them revitalize local economy, so people living in distant areas can enjoy smart administrative services and financial services. These are all relying on improved Fintech. We have more multifaceted mobile payment services covering education, healthcare, legal services, et cetera. We have over 16,000 service items, and the total consumption exceeded RMB 300 billion. In line with the regulatory requirement, we offer our peer banks and other financial institutions our important experience and practice.
Our core systems have been copied by policy banks, stock, joint stock banks, and local commercial banks. We have received very good feedback for the improved safety and stability of the systems. We will continue to use our financial technologies to serve the real economy and push forward the practice of new finance. We will cover inclusive finance, rental housing, rural revitalization, and smart governance. Our new finance initiative will enjoy high-quality development, and the CCB will serve China's modernization with digital technologies.
Thank you, Mr. Wang. We'll go back to Beijing. We have this lady in row five, please.
Thank you, management team. This is Zhang Yuxing from Caijing Media. My question is mainly in real estate. Since last year, we can see that the government has.
Come up with a set of series policies that support the real estate development. What has CCB done in this area? In addition, we have also seen that, in the banking sector, we have seen a lot of pressure in terms of people would like to pay down their mortgages early. How do you cope with this? Finally, I would like to understand for CCB in terms of the housing new innovative model, as well as the push forward for your housing and rental leasing area, and what are your measures? We'll have Mr. Cheng to answer this question.
For real estate sector, this is a sector that the market pays great attention to.
For housing, mortgages and loans, then this is an area it has always been our strength, therefore, we adhere to the central government's policy, which is that houses are for living, not for speculation. The main purpose is to stabilize the market and to stabilize the land price. We try our best to push forward the housing sector to develop in the innovative fashion. One is that we continue to provide all-fronted help and assistance and support, for instance, through bond and through debt and through equity and through various measures for the high-quality real estate companies development. The second, to continue to improve our work efficiency and streamline the process for the companies that meet the requirement in terms of the whole process, the approval time is increased dramatically.
Thirdly, we continue to optimize the real estate sector business. Looking at the market, we continue to optimize real estate loans, development loans, and we differentiate the different projects. Fourthly, we continue to make sure that there is the guarantee of delivery of the buildings and to make sure that it is legal, and to ensure that we are protecting the livelihoods, protecting the stability, and protecting the delivery of the houses. For those customers who are within this scheme, we actively implement the 16 new measures by the regulators and in terms of whilst ensuring the guarantee from the judicial system and to make sure that the delivery of these houses will be guaranteed and ensure the rights of the consumers are protected.
You know that for CCB, actually, we are one of the commercial banks with the largest mortgages in China. In terms of serving for the livelihoods and benefits of our citizens, this has always been our strength. Looking at 2022, and we have taken multipronged approach to continue to expand our business and to ensure the healthy development of our mortgage business. On one hand, we have a dedicated plan, and looking at the fair value principle, and established a five-three-three dedicated line for customers to call us.
In addition, we also have offline counters for consulting and advice services and to make sure that the online and offline business are aligned, and to ensure that there are no agencies in the middle and to carry out, for instance, the transfer of mortgages and to make sure that for the paying down of mortgages in advance can be carried out in an orderly fashion. Second, we need to make sure that there is good marketing with the customers and to continue to meet their demand. For first-hand housings, it's mainly to make sure that there is a sufficient guarantee of mortgage. Second, we ensure that there is improvement of efficiency and continue to work with the agencies. Thirdly, to continue to promote business promotions and innovations.
We have come up with the innovative measures such as second-hand housing mortgage collaterals to improve our efficiencies. Number four, to continuously improve the digitization foundation of mortgages through our research and innovation, to replace the face-to-face signing of mortgages, to continue to improve CCB's speed, to work with this market. Last year, in terms of real estate and mortgages, we have seen quite a big percentage of improvement in this area. This has reached about 28.23% of the market share, it has also increased by 6.2%. Our quality of the asset continues to improve, the overdue is over only 0.37%, quite ahead of our peers.
In the meantime, we are also expanding our business and implementing the housing and leasing business. We are trying our best to build a new model for our housing business, and we have the following measures. For instance, number one, we look at the diversified business development. By end of last year, for the re-rental leasing business, we have about RMB 200 billion, and it is up by 1.75% the previous year, and it is growing very healthily. Secondly, we have established a housing fund and with the guidance from the relevant authorities, we have established a housing fund. We already have 13 projects that are established, for instance, in Beijing, Shanghai, and in these first and second-tier cities. We have provided about 7,000 different flats.
Together with the Bank of China here, we have established a subsidiary fund, and in addition, in Chongqing. We will also be utilizing all these social resources and to continue to ensure a healthy development of the real estate. Thirdly, we are ensuring the development of the delivery of housing to the citizens. We have established different funds, and we have dedicated staff and pushed forward in Guangzhou, Tianjin, and projects as such in those cities. They have received very good feedback from the market. Number four, we have built a housing rental leasing ecosystem, and we are working with our staff and to provide leasing services. For instance, this would also include consumption, credit, loans, et cetera, through enhancing the different ecosystems.
For our customers, we have about 51 million of customers, and this has brought us about 12 million new customers. The total volume is about RMB 218 billion. You can see very good results. You know that, for CBSRC, they have issued their opinion paper on supporting the housing leasing market and to further expand the channels in this area. For CCB going forward, we will continue to look at expansion of our services for house leasing business and to make sure that there is upgrading of the business and in addition to ensure the new transformation of the business model and to continue to create better value. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Cheng. Next question from Hong Kong.
Thank you, management, for the opportunity. From CLSA. My question has to do with inclusive finance. The President said that the bank is in a leading position in inclusive finance. Can you please talk about some special measures that have been taken? The market is quite interested in knowing your risks and interests. The government will roll out policies to allow late payment. Can you please also talk about the yield in inclusive finance? You also said that you are a leading bank in revitalizing rural development. Can you please elaborate on that?
Mr. Cui from Beijing will take the question.
Thank you for your interest. Inclusive finance is indeed an important topic. I prepared for that question, but I was a bit concerned that no one will ask about that. I met a few foreign clients. When I presented inclusive finance, no one would understand. I was wondering why that happens, as inclusive finance was actually burgeoning from other countries and imported in China. I think you asked three questions indeed. You asked about inclusive finance, I would like to take initiative to answer one more question regarding inclusive finance. Many people who didn't know much about inclusive finance would see it as something very difficult for a commercial bank. For myself, I experienced three stages. Number one, there was a stage where people were wondering if large commercial banks should be involved in inclusive finance.
In the second stage, people were worrying that they might not be do a good job in inclusive finance. But in the third stage, which we are at, we need to think about how we can build good and sizable inclusive business, finance business. We have a sizable inclusive finance business. You also asked about yield and investment return and risks. I'll give you a few numbers. Inclusive finance is RMB 2.35 trillion. The NPL ratio is only 1%. This is lower than the NPL ratio of the group, and it's much lower than the NPL ratio of our corporate business. As for investment return, it's around 3%-4%, and this is achieved when we are still conceding benefits to customers. This was achieved in a difficult position.
In a normal time, we can still increase the investment return. The national government wants us to assume our responsibility. With risks being controlled, we will try our utmost to concede profit to our customers. I believe if you compare the numbers above with other businesses, you will understand inclusive finance better. By the way, the inclusive finance business also bring to us a lot of private banking business and supply chain financing business. Our bank's supply chain finance business is more than other banks combined. We have a lot of benefit, but controllable risks. You would also ask how we achieved that. I think the key is having a sizable customer base, plus digital technology and database, as well as risk appetite and restructuring credit model and other specialized systems for inclusive finance.
These are our special characteristics of the inclusive finance business. For example, we have a very sizable database in inclusive finance. The group has established a data-driven and a digital model-driven business model for inclusive finance. Internally, 80% of our business is totally online. Many of you have used our Hui Dong Ni platform. With a few clicks, you will get access to customers' profile and their credit rating. This is thanks to the development of big data technologies in China. For example, information about tax payment and transactions is available on this mobile system. I believe we benefit that a lot from our national development. 2.5 million customers will benefit from such a platform. Without technology, without data, people would still linger in the first stage. At the second stage, it all breaks down to the bank's risk management capabilities.
We are very selective about customers. We have a huge network of physical branches which were involved in the development of inclusive finance. Sometimes even one branch would achieve a RMB 200 million business volume for inclusive finance. We are very confident with the support of digital technology and data. This year, the management required that the bank should take more measures to develop inclusive finance in 2023. For example, credit customers in our plan will see higher proportion in the customer portfolio. We have 170 million market subjects, but only 50 million customers have credit profile. In CCB, we have only 200 million-300 million customers who have credit profile, so we need to cover more customers. Our loan balance is around 10% of the total market size.
We are even more ambitious to increase the proportion of credit profile customers, and we need to accelerate the development of some platforms so we can cover more smaller size customers. Last year, the 3.0 version of Hui Dong Ni platform was released. It added other features like wealth management, legal services, tax services, logistics, and supply chain services that connect both upstream and downstream, catering to the needs of SMEs. This is the feature of our inclusive finance business. You also asked about the impact of late payment of loans. I think the national policies on that worked very well. They worked well in protecting this market participants, so banks would also develop new management models. People were probably concerned about bigger risks and potential issues after the policy is implemented in June this year.
We comb through all the loans that involve late payment. They're not in a big size. It's only 3% of the total bank loan balance is around RMB 60 billion. We will categorize these loans in a structured way according to their repayment capabilities and needs. In general, the risks are still under control. We have full confidence that through internal management policies and other measures, we can provide better services to these customers, and the risks are totally under control. Please don't worry. These types of loans are not of a large size. Secondly, low NPL ratio is attributed to higher credibility and better credit environment of the businesses in China.
When it comes to inclusive finance, people think of those companies that couldn't sustain for long, but we believe there are still a huge number of good customers, because we are talking about a market size of 100 million companies, small companies, especially. I'd like to call upon everyone to support the development of inclusive finance, and the bank will continue to make better contribution to inclusive finance customers. You also asked about our progress in rural revitalization. Indeed, revitalization of rural areas is one of our focus areas, and our measures have been implemented very well. I'd like to report on that. First, we have a rural revitalization platform through 440,000 service points. We have 14,000 bank branches, but our rural service points cover 440,000 service points across the country.
We serve 52 million customers. When serving these customers, we provide this Yu Nong Tong application. We can get access to those customers who were not banked in the past. We cannot cover every and each service point, but through these smaller micro service points, we can expand our market coverage. We have two special loans for rural revitalization. For example, we have special loans for high-standard farm fields. Last year, we made breakthrough in agricultural loans with this product. That's why we achieved a 21.8% in loans to revitalize rural areas. Besides, we have established a number of different scenarios of rural revitalization. For example, custodian services and other partnership with farmers. We set up a so-called friend circle with the farmers by offering more financial services.
Through the different scenarios and better access and service points, we can extend our service portfolio to rural areas. Fourthly, we set up a risk management system. It is implemented at every and each rural service point. They offer a smart risk management system to farmers. Inclusive finance, coupled with rural revitalization, will offer our customers a large and broad sector. The four aspects above were my answers to your question. Thank you for your interest again.
Thank you, Mr. Cui. Actually, time is almost up. Perhaps Hong Kong and Beijing, we can each have one more question. Hong Kong media from Hong Kong, do we have any questions? Yes, please. This lady.
We can see that CCB has achieved very good results last year, full of confidence for your business this year as well. I have one question. In terms of dividend payout, will you continue to increase? What is the percentage for dividend payout?
Mr. Sheng, please take this question.
Thank you for your question. CCB's growth, overall speaking, is to serve all our customers as well as serve all our shareholders. It is thanks to your support that we are able to achieve such good results. The good results of our performance is really inseparable from the support from our shareholders. We will, of course, should share this with our shareholders. Overall speaking, 30% of dividend payout, this will not change.
On the basis of this 30% and in terms of the dividend, final figure will depend on our profitability and how well we do for 2023. With the recovery of the economy, overall speaking, we believe that with CCB's continuous growth, as we have mentioned, for instance, in terms of our non-interest income, et cetera, we believe that we will do better this year. In terms of NIM, as we have heard, there is some pressure. In terms of a dividend, the payout ratio is the same, but the actual amount will depend on our business performance. Overall speaking, of course, we hope that every year we can have a better and better performance for our shareholders.
Thank you. One more question from Beijing.
Thank you, management, for the opportunity. I'm from Zhuozheng Commercial Bank. We know that comprehensive finance is a mega-trend, investment banking capabilities are one of the keys in your development. Can you please talk about that, in terms of underwriting and other aspects, how do you look at the outlook of building a stronger investment banking business? Mr. Cui.
CCB has seen high-quality development as a priority. Light asset development is one of the major strategies with light asset and light capital through direct financing and indirect financing, and with finance and Fintech, we can build special capabilities of investment banking. More importantly, we need to play the role bridging different markets, so we can give full play to multiple licenses we own at the head office. When serving important customers, our investment bank has played an important role, equally important with technology.
Many customers are familiarized with traditional markets, investment banking and Fintech will come down to intelligence. I'd like to report back to you in three aspects. First, last year, through investment banking, we offered over RMB 1.8 trillion of investment volume. This offers very convenient services to our bank's business. Stock underwriting business, there were 747x offering services to more than 400 customers, and we have the most highest number of services among four major national banks. We offer services to existing customers in every aspect. In business volume and the number of customers, we are indeed the number one among the four major banks. We focus on key industries in China, industry like energy and agriculture industries. We have very high quality of investment banking business.
We also underwrote 44 innovative categories of securities, RMB 33.2 billion, increasing by 166%. We have utilized RMB 112 billion market capital. Investment banking is not only about services, it's also about connecting different market factors. We have implemented mergers and acquisitions notes for real estate developers and tech companies. We have REIT business as well. We have issued 51 times of green bonds, and we served over 8,000 SMEs. As the only one underwriting bank which covers a whole range of investment banking businesses, we are the number one among the four banks. In sovereign funds, we build a broad range of products. We have built a matrix of services that serve tech companies, and there is a keen market demand from coastal areas where the economy is vibrant.
Last year, we served 972 tech companies and invested RMB 120 billion. The intelligent technologies as an investment bank were fully obvious. Our credit products and equity products, among other special products, have observed the differences in market demand. We created the first assessment system in investment banking, changing the old business model. Third, we have established a system for mergers and acquisitions. We have participated in mergers and acquisitions worth of more than RMB 400 billion. There is still a great room for further development because the M&A market is getting gaining steam. Many enterprises will need the opportunities for further M&A and structuring their stock structure. We have played the important role by digital technologies and intelligent enabling technologies.
In 2022, on our three major platforms, we have over 650 customers, registered customers, meaning 650,000 corporate customers used our investment platform. There were over 6 million visits. We have over 300,000 research reports covering 120 sectors and 664 economic indicators. To many customers, we offered intelligence services and financing services in general through these three platforms. We have built CCB Investment Banking, a well-known brand, and I look forward to your continuous interest in our investment banking business, so we can offer better branded services to the customers.
Thank you, Mr. Cui, because today we have also had the online platform. We have a question here asking about CCB's international business. This is a question with respect to One Belt, One Road, RCEP, and support Hong Kong's economy and social development, and what are the effects that you have achieved. Thank you. Please welcome Mr. Wang.
Actually, last year, this is quite a challenging year for the international community, whether it is for the pandemic or geopolitical conflicts or the major monetary countries in terms of the monetary policies that they have adopted, and there are fluctuations in the market. However, for CCB, in terms of our business and we continue to push forward digitization and continue to push forward for the stable development of our international business, we have achieved highlights.
I would also like to briefly brief you and in terms of supporting export and trade, we continue to extend credit to make sure that the finance supply to the export and trading business, we have realized about RMB 1.8 trillion financing for the export and trading business realized a 15% growth. In addition, we have also provided help and relief for the micro and small export business, and this has realized an input of RMB 25 billion credit extensions to the micro and small business and to support them. In terms of cross-border RMB business, this is well underway. For the whole year, we have completed RMB 3 trillion business.
Our London branch has continuously maintained as the biggest RMB settlement bank outside of Hong Kong and realized RMB settlement of 7.5 billion. In terms of digitalization, we have a digitalized platform. This platform last year has played a very important role. In 35 countries, we have provided services for 170,000 customers to provide them with business matching services and actually with the pandemic happening as a background. You can see that CCB has played a very important role in this area. We have also received very good well feedback from our customers. Last year, we were also awarded the Asian Banks Ecological Development.
Apart from this, we have also worked on our blockchain development, there are about 112,000 blockchain transactions. In addition, we also have been awarded one of the 100, top 100 companies utilizing blockchain. At the moment, we have about over 200 international agencies. We also have a business that is multi-currency and across different time zones and continuously to provide financial services to our customers. In this ever-changing market, our positioning is that we will be fully compliant and focus on our development and expansion. Our overseas business not only has realized our total business expansion as well as total revenue growth. With respect to One Belt, One Road, we continue to follow the One Belt, One Road initiative.
We are also playing an active role. We utilize the international syndicate for overseas Merger and Acquisition. We have mid and long-term financial products and to provide financing services and convenience to countries along the One Belt and One Road pathways. Last year, we have provided countries such as Poland, et cetera, in over 60 countries and provided them with the financing for energy and infrastructure and total amounting to RMB 50 billion. Apart from this, for our overseas business, we also provide guarantee business. For this area, for instance, this would mainly be for some contracting business overseas. We are also very innovative, and we have provided about 140 small various currencies for our customers, and this has also been well-received.
In addition, we have also launched a One Belt, One Road bond, and it raised the funds of RMB 1.7 billion. With One Belt, One Road, CCB has played a very active role in RCEP. This is always one of our priority overseas market. I have two sets of data to report, you will understand about our priority policies. In terms of RCEP, our total asset account for our overseas business of 66.3%, overseas financing has reached about 73.5%. You can see that they are both above 2/3. For our overseas balance has accounted for more than 3/4. For overseas business, RCEP is definitely one of the very important part.
With respect to Hong Kong, we have two business here, CCB (Asia), which is the building that we are in at the moment. CCB (Asia) is mainly working from this building. In addition, we also have a CCB Hong Kong branch. So we have two institutions and one management team. Our Hong Kong institutions, as one of the biggest our overseas business, and this is a leader in our business, and we continue to insist what President Xi has said in the Hong Kong's return to China and in his main speech, and to support Hong Kong to be integrated into the development of China and to further consolidate various different industries such as trading and logistics, et cetera. In last year's very complicated situation, Hong Kong has achieved very good results.
On one hand, they have realized a positive profit growth, and it has increased its profit to, by 1.5% year-on-year. In addition, for Hong Kong's loan business, and Hong Kong's loan business, whilst everybody is suffering a negative growth, Hong Kong has actually realized a positive growth in loan business. In addition, in major business such as cross-border RMB and product innovation, it has played a very important leading role. To lead our group to move forward and to realize a very stable growth, they have grasped the opportunity of RCEP. At the moment, in six RCEP signing countries have realized their business and project implementations and also strongly support the GBA's development for the past three years and the total investment for RMB 70 billion.
Also help Hong Kong to build a green finance center, and ESG has RMB 3 trillion. For Hong Kong, our Hong Kong institution is also an appointed, specifically appointed liquidity provider by HK MA. Last year, for the Bond Connect to the northbound, and at the moment we are in top four. All of these are great achievements. You can see that they well reflect our Hong Kong institutions in terms of helping and supporting Hong Kong's economic and social development. We have also received a very good development ourselves.
Thank you, Mr. Wang. Ladies and gentlemen, in the interest of time, this concludes today's annual results announcement.
If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact with our board office as well as the PR department, we will answer your questions in different ways. Again, thank you very much for your longtime support for CCB. I would also like to thank everyone for your participation today. Wish you good health, and all your dreams will come true. Thank you very much for coming again.