Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. A warm welcome to the China Construction Bank's 2024 annual results announcement. Thank you all very much for your trust, attention, and support you have given to CCB. This announcement meeting will have 2 venues in Beijing and Hong Kong, and we will also have the online webcast so that the shareholders and the public can also receive the announcements in real time. In Beijing venue, we have Mr. Zhang, President of CCB; Vice President, Mr. Ji Zhihong; Party Member, Ms. Han Jing; the General Manager of the Credit Loan Department, Mr. Huang Jianfeng. In Hong Kong venue, there are Vice President, Mr. Li Zhijiang; Chief Information Officer, Mr. Jing Panshi; General Manager of the Accounting Department, Mr. Liu Fanggen. Attending the conference also include the non-executive director, independent director, and the supervisors.
The heads of related departments of head office and also our Hong Kong institutions are also attending. I am Liu Rong, CFO of CCB. CCB's 2024 annual results has already been released today, and the presentation material has also been released on our official website for your reference. First, we will have the speech of Mr. Zhang Yi, and then we will have the Q&A session. Now, let's welcome Mr. Zhang. Distinguished investors, analysts, and media friends, good afternoon. Thank you all for attending CCB's 2024 annual results announcement. 2024 is the 75th anniversary of China and also the 70th anniversary of CCB. In the past 70 years, we developed along with the prosperity of China, and the leadership of CCB has all contributed to the prosperity of our country and also the well-being of our people.
Since we got listed, under the strong support of our supporters and also the people, we have realized very steady developments across all life cycles, and we continue to give returns in a very constant way to our shareholders and also to our supporters. I would like to thank you all for your trust. Today, the Board of Directors of CCB has already approved our annual results. Now, I would like to share with you the 2024 annual results of CCB and our future outlook and plan. In 2024, we have been adhering to the principle of President Xi Jinping and also the principles set out in the central government's meeting and also the party congress meeting and the national congress meeting. We also adhere to our principles of very steady and robust development. We have made very remarkable achievements.
Our operating income is RMB 728.6 billion, and the loan is RMB 3 billion, and our net profit is RMB 336.3 billion. The NPL ratio is 1.34%, decreased by 0.03 percentage points. Especially, the key indicators are leading in our industry. The net interest ratio is 1.51%, ROA 0.85%, ROE 10.69%. Capital adequacy ratio is 19.69%, and the cost-income ratio is 29.58%. We have achieved such remarkable results, and we also adhere to five pillars. First is the technology, and we stick to technology, finance-powered national strategy industries, and we have strengthened various systems and mechanisms. The loans to strategic emerging industries, to technology-related industries, is over RMB 3.5 trillion, and the loans to strategic emerging industries is at RMB 2.84 trillion, both at an industry-leading way. The green loan is also very remarkable at RMB 4.7 trillion, increased also significantly from last year.
For the loan, actually, it also exceeds CNY 200 billion, and the SE rating also is lifted up to AAA. It is the first Chinese mainland bank to have such rating. We are also one of the top 10 banks to realize the AAA ratings. We also had our inclusive finance, which is illuminating every household. The balance of inclusive finance loans is at CNY 3.41 trillion, and also our support to the agricultural sectors continues to be ranked the first for three consecutive years, and we are also leading in terms of inclusive loan. In terms of the pension finance, we also have the Jian Yang An brand, and we have three pillars to support the Jian Yang An pension scheme. Also the active users and the social insurance cards in active use are also reaching new highs.
The loans that we issued to the public are also nearly CNY 800 billion, and we are also in the leading place in terms of the digital economy. We also serve to the national cause and try to increase the domestic demand, and we also executed various industries' loans, and our loan to the industry of the group is CNY 25.85 trillion, and we also exceeded CNY 1 trillion in terms of the financial loans for policy banks. We are also serving the country's regional development strategy, and our personal customers also decreased CNY 770 billion, and the balance of loan is also CNY 5.4 trillion, also increased by 9.84%. In terms of the trade financing, we also have exceeded CNY 550 million. We also set up the Shanghai Financial Centers to open more ports for cross-border financial business.
As in the London clearing bank, we remain the largest RMB clearing bank outside Asia, and we also accelerated share buyback to support the financial management companies and the asset management companies to open in Shanghai, Beijing, Suzhou, and Hefei. We also support the SMEs and various cities in terms of property loans. Certainly, we also have a coordinated development in various departments and also associates of the bank. We also emphasize the customer-centered principle and try to always continue to enrich our customer services. We have a company of 11 million corporate customers, and for the online customers, we remain at over 500 million. We also have diversified wealth management products to satisfy the financing needs of various customers.
We have the asset management scale of CNY 5.56 trillion, including the individual wealth management, and we are also number one in our industry in this regard. We have realized new results of this coordinated development, especially for our overseas institutions. We continue to improve our efficiency. The AUM is $268 billion, also a significant increase, and we maintain our position. All our subsidiaries have improved their efficiency, and also the profit increased by 15.7%. Firstly, we also built a high-quality management system through long-term efforts and risk control. First, we try to consolidate the risk accountability of the main body, and we also try to optimize the management of financing framework and system. We try to take a preemptive way, and the NPL also decreased by 0.03 percentage points. Our risk provision rate is continuing to be sufficient.
In terms of the risk assets, for 10 consecutive years, we have realized the positive growth. We also optimized our risk control capacity. In terms of internal auditing and internal control, we also enhanced the personnel's risk control awareness and also control measures. We also emphasize on several key points like the systematic risk control, and we also continue to enhance our capability in anti-money laundering capacity. Fifthly, we also built a high-quality management system. We optimized the group's top-level management framework and also improved an integrated group-wide look-through management framework, increased the application and innovation of information technology, including those of the overseas institutions and the subsidiaries and other aspects, total 10 aspects of this framework. We also enhanced the data governance framework, and also we implemented full lifecycle management for data and centralized the operation of the key platform.
We also deepened the finance big model development, and we have over 190 scenarios, over 4,000 projects. We also have a DeepSeek-like big model deployment in terms of the AI system. We also have the full local management of data. In terms of the point of purchase, the different outlets and different subsidiaries promoted centralized operation of complicated business and process optimization. We also enhanced the penetration management framework of our overseas institutions and also our subsidiaries.
2025 is the beginning year of the 14th five-year plan. According to President Xi Jinping's instructions, we will strengthen our capability to enhance the financial system. We will focus on our bank business and uphold the principle of no financial risks, and we will comprehensively improve our capability and create value. We will adapt to the low-interest environment and explore different approaches to high-quality development.
We will adopt the right methodologies, so CCB will achieve its objectives. We will keep the stable growth of loans. We will enhance our efforts to support the real economy. We will enhance our foundation of loan services. We will optimize our asset structure, and we will focus on the five main areas of finance. We will optimize debt structure. We will optimize our revenue structure so our NIM will outperform our peers, increasing the revenue in non-interest income. We must make sure that our investment and output are up to expectation. We will manage our asset quality counter-cyclical, and we will enhance our stable income. In terms of future outlook, we will stick to our main business, offering high-quality contribution to the real economy. We will start a number of measures targeted at boosting the consumption market by offering financial services.
We will align ourselves with the national strategy to boost the consumption market. We will provide better financial services so we can enhance our status in consumer finance. We will make full use of our advantage in infrastructure financial services. We will use active approaches to developing the five major areas of finance. We will better serve the new productive forces, and we will have a new portfolio of green financial services so we can offer better inclusive finance and enhancing the integration of offline and online financial platforms. We will have more competitive elderly care financial services. We will use digital technology to enhance our financial services. We will better support the high-quality development of private companies. We will support the 2025 action plan and the 16 actions in order to serve better the private economy. We will support the coordinated development of urban and rural areas.
We will serve the high-quality overseas services. We will support the integration of CNH and CNY. We will deeply integrate our services with our customers' ecosystems, promoting our capabilities and offering a better customer experience. We must be an early starter in digital finance and enhance our efforts to develop the ecosystem, supply chain, industry chain, and cooperation with universities. We will offer integrated services to meet customers' needs, offering better customer performance. We will offer high-quality customer services and understand them from their perspective so our customer services can be bettered and perfected to create the maximum value for our group. In internal management, we will enhance our own mechanism and lay a good foundation for development. We must be both efficient and safe so we can establish our operational system. We will make good use of our customer managers and offer both offline and online services.
Information technologies will be enhanced, and digitalization transformation will be accelerated. An internal risk control system will be established to enhance the three defense lines. We will enhance the see-through management of overseas subsidiaries. We will deepen our consumer protection mechanisms, and we will be a stabilizer for consumer finance. This year marks the 20th anniversary of our IPO. We will stick to the spirit of reform and enhancing our capabilities so we can sail on the path of new development, creating a better future for all stakeholders. Thank you. Thank you, President Zhang. Now, we will take some questions. We will take questions from both Beijing and Hong Kong. To allow more investors, analysts, and journalists to ask questions, we suggest that you limit your questions to only one question at a time, and please identify yourself before asking a question.
Now, we will take the first question from Beijing.
Thank you, management from CGTN. Thank you, management, for the introduction to the results. We have seen strong performance and stable performance of main indicators. What is the driving force behind the performance? Faced with the accommodative fiscal policies, how do you adjust your policies, and how do you look at the revenue and profit level for this year? President Zhang will take the question.
In 2024, we have seen progress amid stability. We have seen clear signs of stability. We have overcome the challenge of a lower interest rate. We have seen higher net profit. We have recorded a CNY 336 billion of net profit, a year-on-year increase of 1.15%. ROE, NIM, and the cost-revenue ratio have been markedly leading. In terms of profit, we have seen 5.9% in asset and liability. Our total asset is CNY 40 trillion.
We have transformed our light asset, and non-interest revenue is up by 1.8%. We enhanced our efforts to develop green finance, digital finance, elderly care finance, and the loans to these areas have grown sharply. Specifically, in three areas, we have targeted our efforts: revenue, cost, and risk control. In terms of revenue, in interest income and non-interest income, we have different approaches, and we have coordinated different conditions to stabilize our net interest income. We have kept the growth of net assets, and our daily balance is CNY 39 trillion, up by 8%. Loan accounted for 88.5%, 1.3% up year on year. We have strengthened our efforts to support new areas. For example, technology and other areas have seen very high-speed growth. We supported retail finance, and our mortgage loan customers exceeded 15 million. We have newly invested in CNY 660 billion in mortgage loans.
Personal commercial consumer loans have seen a high growth rate of 25%. At the same time, we have improved our risk-based pricing capability. Our new personal mortgage loans, inclusive loans, and RMB bonds, we have surpassed our peers in the revenue in these areas, and this has helped us lay a good foundation for keeping the NIM low. We have deepened our financial services and increased the contribution from non-interest income, and we have seized the opportunity in consumer finance. We offer diversified financial services to consumers. Our commission and non-interest income amounted to RMB 109 billion in online payments and credit cards, etc. We have been doing pretty well. We have tracked the market dynamics in both equity and bond market. We took preemptive measures to realize other non-interest income of RMB 33 billion. As for risk control, we have reduced our cost of capital.
We enhanced the foundation for liabilities, lowering the cost of capital. We have managed the cycle of corporate capital, and we strengthened the low-cost settlement of capital. As we said, our corporate customers surpassed 11 million, and individual customers 700 million, and payroll accounts over 16 million. We have been market-leading in these areas. Our daily RMB deposit is CNY 27.6 trillion per day, a 6.5% year-on-year increase. Deposits, our CASA is 62%, leading the market. The interest payment rate, 1.65%, down by 12 basis points, the lowest since 2022. We have reduced our operational cost and strengthened cost management. We have seen tangible results in operational management. Cost-to-revenue ratio is 29.8%. Operational revenue is up by 170. We have enhanced our coordinated control and improved the efficiency in our cost. We supported strategic projects and customer accounts. Financial technology is 3.35% of our total cost.
This is for cost. In terms of risk mitigation, we reduced the cost of credit services. Risk control has been prioritized with stable asset quality. NPL ratio is down by 0.03%. Special mention zones alone, 0.05%. Provision coverage ratio, 233%. In 2025, we followed the instructions from the Central Economic and Financial World Conference and created a healthy balance sheet. As for specific measures, we optimized the asset structure. With the core assets reasonably growing, we have adjusted the structure of credit services, and we have doubled down our efforts to develop retail loans. We expand our customer base through online services. At the same time, we flexibly arrange active liability tools to expand the source of capital. We coordinated different financial products so we can keep the market-leading level of NIM.
We continuously improve our capability in financial services and increasing the contribution from non-interest income. In credit cost, operational cost, we have improved our level in lien management. Our all-cycle management model. We have seen the common business model and customer needs in the market. We will offer targeted services to build our differentiated capabilities so we can create an ecosystem that meets the customer needs. We can upgrade the financial services targeted at specific industries so we can be an inevitable part of people's lives so we can build closed loops to maximize the benefits.
Thank you, Mr. Zhang. Now, a question from Hong Kong. Thank you, President Zhang. From J.P. Morgan, Catherine Li. I have a question in your loan services. In 2024, there was very stable expansion of loan services in 2024. Can you please specify which sectors were these loans targeted?
Can you please give us a prediction of the loan growth for 2024 and 2025 and the possible target sectors? President Zhang, please. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Li. In 2024, according to regulatory requirements, we expanded our markets and served our customers. In total amount and structure, we have realized a balanced development.
We support the physical economy, and we also have an increase of CNY 1.98 trillion of loans, and it is increased by 9.83%. It was also leading in terms of the loan issuance. We also allocated different types of loans for the personal residential loans and mortgage loans. Also consumption loans and also credit card loans. Also all the individual loans, we are all in the leading position in the market. In terms of the individual personal housing loans, we are also maintaining a very leading place in terms of the incremental segment.
In terms of inclusive loans, the balance is RMB 3.4 trillion. We are still in the very leading place in the market. Also, the yield of these loans is also leading in the industry. It is the foundation of our business. We also increased emphasis on the key industries and the sectors, especially those key areas of the physical economy like technology, green, and manufacturing, all realized double-digit growth. The balance of the accumulated credit for the stock buybacks is RMB 8 billion. Also, the manufacturing is RMB 3.3 trillion. With a growth rate of 12.5%, we also try to enlarge our advantage in the traditional loans in terms of the infrastructure, especially in the energy. We also realized a double-digit growth in terms of hydro power station and also some other related infrastructure. There is also new increment loans.
We also try to guarantee the delivery of the real estate. We also increased the property loans by CNY 544 million, which is equivalent to the results of the year before for the Beijing-Hebei region and Yangtze River Delta. The Pearl River Delta also increased their loans. This is the structure of the loans of last year. In 2025, we will also accelerate the accommodative physical policy. We will also use technology to lead the economic growth and the private economy. We will also have increased support from us. We will also try to meet the demand of the loans and to serve the economy.
First, we will also have five pillars focusing on the high-tech companies and the innovation pain points, continue to deepen the financing systems and framework to these high-tech companies, and try to identify more targets for loans so that various high-tech companies can get differentiated demands met. Secondly, we will focus on energy industry and transportation in terms of the green loans, continuously improve our assets, green bond assets. We will also satisfy more SMEs' loan demands. In terms of the mid to long-term loans of these and also the small and medium-sized enterprises. We also have to ensure the quality of the assets is controllable. We also will focus on the pension loans and build up the pension industry to be the priority for our loan issuance, try to resolve the pain points of the public in terms of the pension and the aging needs.
We try to make all these measures and approaches more approachable and also accessible. We also will enhance the priority areas. Our bank, actually, the infrastructure is our advantage traditionally. We will also focus on our key strategies on this infrastructure industry. We will focus on the loans to the key strategic infrastructure projects, including the key residential and also property and real estate development, especially to the SMEs and micro loans, and also support the private economy to develop at a high speed and also guarantee that they can get stable and effective loans from the bank. We will also do a good job in retail banking. Also, in terms of the property developments, we need to give full play to our traditional advantage. We also should promote the consumption economy. That is in response to the national strategy.
We try to accelerate the upgrading and renewal of the consumables to ensure that the consumption economy can keep a leading way. Thank you, Mr. Zhang. Now is the turn of the Beijing venue. The gentleman on the right in the third row. Thank you all.
I'm from Guangdong Development Securities. My question is about the net interest margin. We know that CCB is also leading in the industry in terms of these net interest margin. We know that last year, there were various changes in terms of the pricing. There were some changes in the loans issuance. What are the impacts of all these changes in terms of the policy changes? Will the tension or the pressure be relieved this year in terms of the net interest margin? I will answer this question. As mentioned by Mr.
In 2024, our NIM is 1.51%. We are leading in our industry in this regard. What are our approaches? We try to balance the relationship between the total volume and also structure. We try to optimize the structure while controlling the overall scale. In terms of the maturity, the product, the region, and the customer, we continue to optimize the structures. There are generally three aspects. First, optimize the asset allocation. In recent years, we continue to reduce the low yield percentage. Last year, we still maintained that momentum. We also increased the percentage of the loan and also the bonds. Last year, the higher yield loans and bonds investment accounts have been released. It has been increased by 1.3 percentage points. We also actively responded to the national government's call. In terms of the local loans, we have increased our input.
These loans actually only take up a small percentage of our loan, and the yield is relatively high. Actually, our declining rate is less than the rate of the national bond. It has helped us in terms of the net interest margin. In terms of the overseas institutions, we also strengthened our guidance and instruction in terms of the pricing and also the control. We also optimized the liability structure in two aspects. For the over three-year maturity products, we exercise effective control. In the meantime, we also enhance the control of the low-interest products. Through this optimization, we effectively control the cost of such loans. Our liability and the interest of this liability has been greatly reduced on a year-on-year basis. That is why we have maintained a very good NIM level.
We also exercise the linear management and effective tools to manage the pricing. For the pricing management, no matter from the asset or liabilities, no matter private or public, we can have a very targeted management to each individual client so that our loan yield and also the savings interest rate has all been maintained at a leading level in the industry. These years, we can see the savings have been on the decline. There is also a need to access a balance between various factors. The savings interest rate is on the decline in the past years. It kind of can hedge against the impact from the decrease of property loans. We also have relaxed physical policy. For this year, we think that NIM still has some pressure given all these policy changes and the market changes.
For the next stage, we will enhance our optimization of these structures and also the pricing system management. We are confident that our NIM will be maintained at a very competitive level in the industry. Thank you for your question. Next, I will invite the Hong Kong venue to raise questions. The lady on the right hand. Thank you. I'm from Mang Wui Newspaper. I want to ask about the quality of asset. From last year, the retail loan risk of the whole banking sector is on the rise. What measures came up with? Do you have any confidence to maintain a very premium asset quality management this year? I will invite Vice President Li Jianjiang to answer. In 2024, we try to secure a very balanced and steady loan and enhance our risk control ability. We continue to optimize our risk control system.
Our overall risk control is in a more orderly way and in a more intensive and controllable way. Just as mentioned by Mr. Zhang, last year, our NPL ratio and also the provincial rate and the related figures have been maintaining at a good level. In recent years, the retail loans risks are on the rise. The NPL rate of the banking sector is also on the rise. As a big bank and also a big bank in retail business, we have accumulated very rich experience. Our overall NPL ratio in the retail sector is at a low level. It has been reduced actually by 0.36 percentage points. Compared with the whole sector, we are at a leading place.
Given the risk challenges in the market, while we are referring to our experience, we also try to innovate and try to figure out new ways to control the new challenges. We will monitor the risks and we also have the early warning system and try to optimize the risk control framework, optimize the procedures, and increase the efficiency. For the incremental business, we also have various measures like accelerating the upgrading of our products and also optimization of our customer services.
In 2025, we will resolutely implement the instructions from the State Council and actively address risks, especially in the real estate sector. We will enhance our capabilities of risk mitigation so as to improve our work efficiency. We will continuously optimize the credit structure and work on five areas, strengthening our services in major strategic areas with a higher quality of services.
We will lay a better foundation for high-quality development. We will optimize our risk management system, and we will promote the internal risk control system so we can control the see-through management of risks both in overseas institutions and subsidiaries. For asset quality, we will start early and nip in the bud in different risks by identifying different characteristics of different sectors so we can coordinate different business lines and play the role of overseeing the whole system. We will also address the risks, especially in key areas, sectors, and regions so we can diversify the targeted and differentiated approaches to mitigating risks. We believe with the economic recovery in China, with more favorable policies from the government in 2025, we are confident that we can keep stable asset quality with key metrics being in the reasonable range with sufficient capability in supplementing risks. Next question comes from Beijing.
Thank you for the opportunity. From BOC Securities, I have a question regarding investment and financial markets. At the Central Economic Work Conference, fiscal deficit and long-term special treasury bonds were mentioned. I'd like to ask CCB if you will double down on this front and what are the possible changes in your financial market services. Mr. Ji will take the question.
Thank you for the question. In 2025, the government made it clear that more accommodative monetary policies and active fiscal policies will be carried out. In 2024, we know that RMB 22 trillion of local and treasury bonds were issued. CCB has been the main underwriter of local and treasury bonds. We work with the government in carrying out these fiscal policies, accommodative policies to boost economic recovery. Treasury and local bonds have been among our main investments.
In 2024, for the first time, we underwritten over CNY 1 trillion treasury bonds. We also underwrote a market-leading level of local bonds. In 2025, we will work on four aspects. We will remain our role as the main underwriter, enhancing our capabilities of underwriting local and treasury bonds. In 2024, the percentage of bonds accounted for 25.6% in our total assets. In 2025, we will enhance our efforts to issue special treasury bonds and special local bonds targeted at infrastructure and other policy focuses. We believe that the percentage of loans of bonds will increase in total assets. Secondly, we will make good use of the funds both on and off balance sheets and enhance our efforts in credit bonds so we can make good use of our advantage in risk mitigation in order to build a multi-layered, diversified bond market working on 5 major areas.
We have more bonds for technological companies and green areas, and we will increase the issuance of credit bonds. We will be a better distributor of bonds, so more private investors will invest in government bonds. As a major bank, we have a huge network of financiers, and we have offered bond distribution services to hundreds of financial institutions. In 2024, we distributed over CNY 400 billion of bonds. Going forward, we will enhance our capabilities of bond distribution, increasing bond transaction volume, targeting at medium and small institutions. Fourthly, we will be a good market maker. Now, our market maker services include interest rate bonds, credit bonds, derivatives, and other products. In 2024, our bond transactions increased by 60%. We believe there will be a major increase this year as well.
We will further enhance our capabilities of pricing and transaction so we can be an important bank in price discovery and improving market liquidity. For your information, in 2024, CCB was designated as the bank for mutual recognition and connectivity of bonds in China and the U.K. We will make use of different channels, including the Bond Connect, so we can offer high-level financial services to overseas investors holding RMB bonds. As for investment strategies, we have established a rather complete bond investment strategy systems, and we are also optimizing the system from time to time. Since this year, there has been some market volatility, and the market has stabilized in recent days. We have kept a close eye on market dynamics.
We will enhance our research and prediction of the market trends so we can take a more proactive approach to investing in bonds, balancing revenue and risks so we can set up a system geared towards economic added value. In account management strategies, we will make some due adjustments.
We will dynamically adjust different categories of assets, and we will increase the proportion of some public asset classes so we can improve our capabilities in investment research for a robust market. Next question from Hong Kong. 谢谢。
Thank you. Management. Gary from HSBC. My question has to do with non-interest income. This year, for the whole year, the growth of your commission income improved compared with the first 3 quarters. Could you please tell us what the drivers were, and was there some growth in your agency services in quarter four?
Among other non-interest income items, have they contributed positively to your profit? Mr. Liu, General Manager of the Financial and Accounting Department, will take the question. Thank you.
In 2024, the non-interest income was CNY 138.7 billion, an increase of CNY 10.3 billion, up by 8%. Non-interest income was 19% and 1.8 percentage points year on year. Commission income in 2024, commission income was CNY 104.9 billion, down by 9.35%, aligned with the industry trends. Despite the pressure in income, we have seen some positive changes. First of all, better revenue margin. The whole year's decline has narrowed by 0.9 percentage points compared with the first three quarters. In Q4, there was a 5% narrowing. In Q4, we realized positive growth in product offering. In September, market was boosted by favorable government policies.
We took the opportunity, and we saw 3 months of continuous growth in equity-based funds. We have seen a higher proportion of premiums from our insurance business, year on year, an increase of 6%. Secondly, we have seen the proportion of commission income being 14.4% in total revenue. In consumer finance, wealth management, and other new areas, revenue from these new areas accounted for 60%. Thirdly, we have a more stable customer base. We have 7 million new wealth management customers, an increase of 2 million. The total number of credit card holders exceeded 100 million, with more active customers. Custody services have surpassed RMB 3 trillion for the first time. The total size was RMB 23 trillion. In our industry, we have implemented over 200 M&A projects, an increase of 30% year on year. In 2025, we have formulated active development targets.
We're going to seize three opportunities. Number one, consumer market. We will go around consumer market trends. We will enhance our efforts to develop services like credit cards, online payments, etc. Secondly, we will seize the opportunities of wealth management and investment diversification. We will double down our efforts to promote wealth management, fund, and insurance. We will serve the real estate, and we will offer cost calculation, consultant services, guarantee letters, financial services, advisories, and other services and increase their contribution to commission income. Secondly, for other non-interest income, in 2024, the revenue was CNY 33.8 billion, an increase of CNY 21 billion. We seized the market opportunities to optimize the financial asset structure with more financial investments and transaction services. Secondly, we have better control in insurance, structured deposits, and the expenses have seen year on year decrease.
In 2025, we will dynamically optimize the structure of equity investment, bonds, and derivatives. We will enhance our management of liability costs to realize stable income from non-interest channels. Thank you, Mr. Liu. Another question from Beijing. Thank you. Management. From Caixin. I have a question regarding personal mortgage income, mortgage loans. China's government introduced some policies to support people's purchase of homes. Have you seen some changes in the needs from personal home buyers? In 2025, with the adjustments in mortgage loan rates, was there any prepayment? In this market, how do we mitigate the risks in mortgage loans?
Thank you for your question. Actually, the personal housing loans are our traditional advantage, and it is also one of our key areas to serve the people. Thank you for your attention to this issue. Just now, our President Zhang also gave a briefing.
Actually, our balance of the personal housing loan is RMB 1.19 trillion. Actually, we are the number one in terms of the inventory of personal housing loan. Last November, the central government's meeting also issued a series of policies to support the development of the property market, like reducing the loans ratio and also reducing the administrative and procedural fees, etc. There are some positive changes in the property market. From our bank side, the loans application of personal housing has been on the rise significantly. Actually, last year, our average application received has a wide increase of 73%. There is a wide increase of 35%. It increased by 73%. Also, the application acceptance and also the issuance has also maintained a very good momentum. We have laid a very solid foundation for the development. In terms of product structure, there are also some changes.
For the second-hand house loan, it also grows steadily, and the percentage also is increasing. Given the very active market, actually, it is a positive correlation. In some key cities, for the new properties, the loans are also increasing very fast. It also creates a very good environment for our loans. Now, the demands of the people are more and more diversified. They are pursuing a better living, and they want to improve their living status or their living environment. There are many demands that involve the upgrading of the existing apartments or living housing. We also have the slogan, "If you want to buy an apartment, then come to CCB." We need to guarantee the diversified needs of the people and come up with more convenient services and support these kinds of mandatory demands from the people.
Some people also prepay the loans in advance. We can see that the spread of the interest rate has also been reduced, and the pressure of the people has also been reduced in terms of the loan pressure. In terms of the prepayment, it has also reduced by 6.6%. Also, this year, it continued to be reduced in the first quarter of this year. This year, we will continue to improve the efficiency of the business procedures. Of course, there are various influencing sectors impacting on the market adjustments. There are also bigger pressures in terms of the personal housing loan risk control. While exercising the implementation of various related policies, we also need to enhance the risk control measures. We can see that exposure actually has been controlled, and the quality of such personal loans is quite stable.
The NPL ratio is 0.63%. Compared with the industry, we are at a relatively very good status, and our risk is relatively controllable in general. For the next stage, we will also optimize the repayment plans so that the pressure of our clients to repay the loans will be alleviated. We will also optimize the alarming system and also some big data of the new property states and various digital tools to improve our risk control level. We will also adopt various measures to enhance our capacity to deal with the non-performing loans so that our overall asset quality will be maintained at a stable level. Thank you. Now, it is the Hong Kong side to raise questions. The gentleman on the fifth row on the right hand, I am from Phoenix TV. I am Zhen Rong. We want to ask about ESG.
We have seen that in the MSCI ESG rating, you got the highest rating, which is a triple A. Actually, you are the only bank in the whole world to have such a triple rating. Actually, many investors are also very attentive to this ESG performance. What is your plan for the next stage in terms of ESG work? Okay, we will invite Mr. Li Jianjiang to answer. Actually, the ESG philosophy would pursue the social, economic, and environmental benefits. The essence is consistent with the requirements of China's modernization needs and also our development philosophy, which is human-centered. In recent years, CCB has also been implementing these development philosophies and principles, put the key essence and elements of ESG into our framework of development, continued to identify the ESG key factors, and improve the analysis and assessment of these factors, and formed a closed-loop management procedure.
Last year, our rating continued to be raised to be the world-leading level. Just now, you mentioned actually in President Zhang's presentation, it is also mentioned that we are the only top 10 banks to receive the triple A rating, and we are the only mainland bank to have that award. I think it is attributed to four aspects of our efforts. First, in terms of governance, we continue to improve our management system with the Chinese characteristics, identify the accountability and roles of the management in ESG, and we also construct a long-term working mechanism for synergy. In terms of executing the ESG work, we also made various instructions and guidelines. We also have very detailed targets to reach, and there is a very clear roadmap to reach those goals. We also raise awareness about ESG across the whole bank.
Through these measures, we have a top-down approach to enhance the governance system in our bank. All these have laid a very solid foundation. Secondly, in terms of environment, we also have deepened our green finance work, and we also make full play to our multi-license advantage and enhanced our green finance product innovation system and also services. We also realized a growth of 20.99% in terms of green finance. We also continue to improve the ESG risk control system in terms of differentiated credit authorization policy and also categorization of different risks. We also have our own low-carbon operation. This is one of the key links to construct an eco-friendly bank. We also have the paperless procedure and policy. We also have an internal carbon emission management system inspection to review our carbon reduction work effectiveness in a very timely way.
We also have a scope one and scope two data disclosure, continue to expand our own business. For the scope three data, we also continue to improve our disclosure work. Thirdly, it is about the social aspect. We are actively extending our inclusive finance to serve the general public in terms of pension finance. We have the first batch of 60 Jian Yang An pension finance, and we make full play to advantage in terms of our extensive outlets and combine that with the community pension and the aging population service. We also stick to the customer-centered principle to listen to the voices of the customers or KYC. We continue to improve our system and also the management framework, have the regular inspection and also various examinations of our own work. We also conduct various training.
We also regard our staff and employees as our most valuable assets. We organize various trainings and activities, and our satisfaction of employees has been maintained at a very good level. The fourth aspect is regarding the information disclosure. Actually, CCB is a listed company, and we are closely following the ESG regulation policies, and we continue to improve the information disclosure system for ESG. We also refer to the international standards to improve our own work. We also try to satisfy the demands of various stakeholders. We also attach high importance to the regulatory body's advice to CCB's work on ESG in terms of disclosure and execution. We continue to strive to improve our ESG work so that it can also help our high-quality development. Since last year, the governments, regulatory bodies, and the Hong Kong Exchange continue to issue ESG policies and regulations.
There are clearer targets to reach. For example, climate change and opportunity management and sustainable financial impact and the financing scope three data, etc. We will focus on these new issues and arrange our work. For the next step, we will continue to explore the high-quality development. In terms of ESG, we will also combine that with our five priorities, and we will also make steady progress in this regard.
After the results have been announced, a hotline has been set up for answering your questions. This results announcement press conference is also live-streamed on the internet. I received a question from the internet. This question has to do with the use of DeepSeek, the AI model. The question is, will CCB consider using DeepSeek and relevant technologies to advance the digitalization of the bank? Can you please talk about the case studies where the technology is applied?
Thank you. Thank you to our customers who have been supporting the development of our bank. CCB has attached great importance to the research, development, and application of AI and relevant technologies. It's been long since we started using AI in recognizing financial documents, texts, and in smart recommendations. We have received very good feedback. In 2023, with more developed large language models, we started using these large models in the financial industry. With our talents and high-quality financial data, we conducted pre-training, fine-tuning, and enhanced learning of our open-source model. We developed a financial large language model catering to our bank's size. These large language models include large language model image generation, code and programming, and multi-model large language models. They can be applied in different scenarios. Without affecting the current systems in place in our bank, we can shift to these underlying large models any time.
Up until the end of 2024, we tested 16 versions of financial large models. This enabled us to catch up with the iterations of financial large models so we can achieve higher performance in different business lines. Our financial model participated in our internal qualification examinations. The examination included 62 subjects, and the average grades of the large models achieved a 20-mark higher result than our human employees, and it has achieved the highest grade in 22 subjects. That means these large financial models have a very good understanding of the specific knowledge to our financial sectors. By the end of last year, the computing power of GPUs for our large models in our bank accounted for 23.39% of the total computing power in our bank, guaranteeing the need for training of large financial models. Last December, DeepSeek launched its new model.
Since the open-source DeepSeek large language model was made available, we started fine-tuning of the DeepSeek model with our financial data. In February this year, DeepSeek was deployed in our working environment. It elevated the level of application and performance across the bank up until now. Applications of large financial models have covered half of our employees, 46 business lines, and over 200 scenarios. For example, generation of worksheets and in credit risk management, large models help to generate customer due diligence reports and in payment and settlement, smart translation of documents and in custody extraction of dividends of funds and in IT R&D checking code. These scenarios have greatly improved the working efficiency of our employees and have helped mitigate risks.
For example, in credit approval, these models can leverage on the chain of thinking of our financial experts to analyze the financial status of our corporate customers to automatically generate high-quality financial analysis reports. This has addressed the pain point of the lack of financial analyzing capabilities of our customer managers. This has allowed us to compress our work, which took several days to only a few hours. Another example is that in personal finance, we can combine big data and large financial models. We can extract customer profile and customer description from a huge amount of data for analysis and thinking with our large financial models so that our customer managers can approach our customer needs in every link in the service process. The duration of marketing effort has been reduced from 30 minutes to only 5 minutes on average.
These large models can also help our employees improve their productivity. Our bank has produced AI assistants, AI toolkits, and code explainer and vector knowledge base among other applications. These basic applications have been made available to the whole group, and they can benefit the frontline staff across the bank. These large financial models can reduce the burden on employees. For example, AI toolkits supported our employees and allowed them to make work plans in a visualized way. This can help them approach, this can help them solve some specific problems in their day-to-day work. For example, automatic generation of a due diligence report for inclusive loans and the generation of notice for asset transfer and loan calls, and also checking the procurement contract. At present, employees across the bank have developed thousands of items of different capabilities, and the number is increasing day by day.
Code explainer can, with the use of prompts, the code explainer can make use of the programming codes generated by financial large models for data analysis so they can immediately meet the needs of our employees for data. The model can automatically program and analyze the results. What I'm talking about has nothing to do with professionals, and these applications can only be carried out by our frontline layman staff without any background in computer sciences or software development. With the minimum training, they can highly efficiently solve problems in their day-to-day operation. We attach great importance to security, compliance, and right values when using large language models. We comply with the strict safety and security compliance standards. The content generated by these large language models is controllable and credible.
Through integrating vector knowledge base and search results from external sources, we can, to the largest extent, minimize large language model and AI hallucination in the future. AI will play a key role in optimizing business performance and redefining customer services. CCB will continuously advance the development application of financial models in a prudent and cautious way. Thank you. I'm sorry, our press conference today will probably overrun a little because we had a long answer for the question about DeepSeek. Now we will take another question from Beijing. Thank you for the opportunity. Good afternoon, management from Shanghai Security Daily. With lower deposit interest rates, all the banks have seen a decline in the growth rate of deposits. Do you have any measures to stabilize deposits, and will there be any improvement in the stabilization of deposit interest rates? You have asked two questions.
One is about our differentiated strategies, and the second, our long-term strategies. As for differentiated strategy, first, we will enhance our customer services. Mr. Zhang mentioned our strategy is to build an ecosystem and customer scenarios. On the other side, we need to work on supply chain and industry chain. Through digital technologies, we can make good use of our complete financial services and work on every type of customers to offer more products in the pipeline to meet the customer needs and improve on our operational efficiency. As Mr. Zhang said, these strategies allowed us to strengthen our customer base. By the end of 2024, we recorded 680,000 corporate customers, and personal customers reached 770 million. This undoubtedly put us at the leading position in the market.
Secondly, as for the ecosystem and supply chain, we connect customers through the flow of information, funds, and data. Last year, we targeted at the customer connection to build the closed loop of funding in the companies that we serve. Number three, we enhanced our product offering to governments, businesses, and personal customers. We offer an enterprise-level computing network. Specifically, we offer different types of products to different customers, for example, payroll services and integrated services for both corporate and personal customers so we can receive revenue at a low cost. We also optimized the structure of assets and liabilities so we can keep the level of diversity when it comes to liabilities. As for long-term strategy, indeed, since the second half of 2023, we have enhanced our control of long-term deposits. We adjusted structure and improved on quality. The strategies worked very well.
As for current trends, by the end of 2024, time deposits and current deposits both grew by 5.24% and 1.3%. These were in line with the growth of M2 and M1. M2 up by 7.3% and M1 1.3%. Our time deposits were lower than M2 in terms of growth, and our current deposits lower than M1. If you look at the ratio between time and current deposits, our current deposits accounted for 40% in our daily deposit, leading the market. Last year, the percentage of current deposits was up by 0.07 percentage points compared with the first half of the year. As for time deposits, we have been focusing on these high-interest deposits with longer terms, like three years or above. This type of loans accounted for 28.8% compared with 2023. There was an increase of 4%. There was a decrease of 4%.
As for the new deposits, our interest rate has not changed much.
Overall speaking, for our deposits control, our responding to the market changes are also a result of our linear management efforts. That is all of my answer. Next, I would like to invite the Hong Kong side to raise questions. The lady on the fourth row on the left-hand side. Thank you. I am from Huaxing Securities. I am Shen Juan. I want to ask a question about the real estate market. We noticed that since last year, the national policy has been rolled out for supporting the real estate sector. We want to know your arrangements and your supportive direction to respond to that policy. We also want to know how is your risk control in terms of our real estate sector. We will invite Mr.
Huang Jianfeng, our General Manager of the Credit Loan Department, to answer. Thank you for your question. In 2024, the central government has rolled out a series of policies. There is also a policy from the Politburo to support the real estate sector. There were four councils and two reductions. The results are also emerging from these measures. CCB has actively implemented all the policies to support the steady and healthy development of this sector. We also enhance our risk control in this sector to ensure that the risk is controllable. We support the steady and healthy development of the sector. First, we implemented the financing coordination system that is the white list. In our head office, provincial and regional offices, we simplified the procedures, improved the efficiency so that as long as we can issue the loans, we will issue them.
In the meantime, we also enhanced our three priorities, like those guarantee projects. Apart from that, CCB, in terms of personal housing loans and also the accumulative fund loans, we also enhanced our services in that regard. In terms of the overall asset quality control, we also improved our measures. We try to identify the early warning or try to enhance our early warning, early identification, and the monitoring of some risks and the potential risks. We have achieved some results. The NPL ratio and also the NPL scale has been reduced for both sides. For the NPL rate, it has been reduced by 0.85 percentage points. For next stage, we also will execute a series of policies to serve the existing and new incremental segments of this sector. Actually, it has already been one and a half an hour.
We will take the last question. We'll leave it to the Beijing venue. Okay. The lady. Thank you. I'm from CICC. I'm a banking sector analyst, Xu Hongming. We noticed that you increased interim dividend. How can we understand your dividend policy? Okay. We will pass this question to Liu Fanggen from the accounting department. In 2024, we have a dividend of CNY 0.43 per share. The total scale is CNY 10 billion. The interim dividend is totaled at CNY 49.25 billion. The dividend per share is CNY 0.197. The dividend has already been issued before the Spring Festival of 2025. We always attach great importance to the return to the shareholders. We will continue to use the dividend to return to our shareholders.
We will take a comprehensive consideration of the willingness of the shareholders, the supplement to the capital, and balancing the regulatory regulations and sustainable development. In the future, we will continue to improve our comprehensive management level and create greater value for our shareholders. Thank you. That is all of the Q&A. We thank you all for your participation in person and also online. Thank you all, including the investors, analysts, and the media friends. We have had a very frank and open communication so that you can understand our strategic moves, our policies, and also our next arrangements and plans. Maybe some of your questions are not included. You can contact our Board of Directors Office and Investors Relations Department. That is all of our announcement. Hope you have good health and a very good day. Thank you.