Q1 earnings call. I'm Dong Jianjun. Today, we're honored to have with us Mr. Tian Fenglin , Board Secretary of ICBC, along with heads from key departments and subsidiaries, including Corporate Banking, Personal Banking, institutional banking, Inclusive Finance, credit management, finance and accounting, asset and liability management, international banking, technology, data management, research institute, financial markets, asset management, investment banking, personal loans, credit card, and ICBC Wealth Management. I will briefly outline our key performance indicators. ICBC Q1 results have been officially released. Overall, the bank achieved its strongest start in recent years, exceeding expectations. First, key profitability indicators showed positive growth with higher YoY increases. In Q1, group revenue reached CNY 222 billion, up 8.4% YoY. Net profit was CNY 88 billion, up 3.9%.
Net interest income as a core revenue driver rose 7.5% YoY, its first growth since 2023. Net interest margin was 1.29%, up 1 basis point. Its first increase since 2019. Net interest income grew 11.6%, with net fee and commission income up 5.2% and other non-interest income surging 38.9%. Second, assets and liabilities grew steadily. Proactively supporting national priorities and policy packages, ICBC strengthened its role in serving the real economy. By quarter end, total group assets rose 4.3% from year-end to CNY 55.77 trillion, making ICBC the world's first commercial bank to exceed 55 trillion in total assets. Total loans reached CNY 31.71 trillion, up 3.8%.
Financial investments was CNY 17.87 trillion, up 5.7%. Deposit competitiveness improved with customer deposits at CNY 38.59 trillion, up 3.4% from year end, and average daily balance is up 4.19%. Personal and corporate deposits grew in a balanced manner. Thirdly, risk management remained robust. Intelligent risk control capabilities and comprehensive risk governance was enhanced. NPL ratio was stable at 1.31%. Provision coverage ratio rose to 214.38%. NPL disposals totaled CNY 70.5 billion in Q1, up CNY 15.1 billion YoY. The write-off efficiency ratio reached 2.2. Risk resilience and NPL resolution capabilities strengthened further. That concludes the overview of our Q1 performance. We now begin the Q&A session. Please identify yourself with name and institution. Thank you very much.
Let's take the first question. Please identify yourself with name and institution. Thank you.
Thank you very much for giving me the opportunity to raise the first question. I'm May Yan from UBS. My question concerns loan growth. I have seen the disclosed results. I should congratulate all of you for the robust results, better than expectations from the market. My question is, according to the monthly social financing data from the Central Bank, Q1 saw slower YoY growth in corporate loans, continued contraction in bill financing, and an ongoing downward trend in credit expansion. We have also heard that in April, the Central Bank will hope that the bank can grow more credit. I don't know whether it's true. For ICBC, how did you perform on loan deployment? What's your full year outlook? Thank you.
For this question, I will invite asset and liability departments to answer with supplements with Corporate Banking departments.
On the corporate loan growth, I have two observations for your reference. First, for total financing, we have seen that overall corporate financing growth remains stable. According to PBOC Q1 data, total financing to corporate sector loans, bonds, and equity combined grew by 8.3%, up 0.4 percentage points from the same period last year. This growth rate has been broadly stable at around 8% since H2 of 2024 for our bank. As of end March, corporate financing under the same definition grew by 11.5%, in line with the overall trend. Second, from loan growth, corporate loan growth has indeed moderated by the end of Q1.
Outstanding corporate loans nationwide grew by 8.6%, down 0.7 percentage points from last year. We see a similar pattern on our bank. Domestic RMB corporate loans grew by 10.7%, down 1.8 percentage points YoY. We believe there are two main reasons behind this. First is the base effect. During the 14th Five-Year Plan, counter cyclical policies were strengthened and large State-Owned banks took on greater responsibility in credit supply. The base has been rising rapidly, loan growth is naturally normalizing. Second, there has been a positive shift in the financing structure. In the current low interest rate environment, corporates are more willing to issue bonds, which has partly substituted for traditional bank lending, and helping re-reducing finance costs, posing pressure for banks, which is conducive to reducing financing costs for corporates.
According to PBOC data, in Q1 corporate loans increased by CNY 60 billion less, while bond financing increased by over CNY 500 billion more. In response, we have also stepped up our bond investments. At the end of March, our corporate bond investments grew by 37.9% YoY, significantly faster than corporate loans. Our credit extension in Q1 reflects steady overall growth with a more optimized structure by end March. Our domestic RMB loans grew by 6.9% YoY, higher than the national level at 1.2 percentage points. Corporate loans grew by 10.7%, 2.1 percentage points above the market. Lending to key areas, manufacturing, Inclusive Finance, green finance, strategic emerging industries, agriculture-related sectors and private enterprises all grew faster than the average.
Looking ahead, we'll place greater emphasis on balanced and targeted credit allocation in total volume. We aim to maintain steady growth. In pacing, we'll avoid front loading and ensure more even deployment in allocation. We're focused on major national strategies, key sectors and weak links, while strengthening financial support for consumer spending. Meanwhile, we'll actively adapt to changes in the overall financing structure and maintain solid growth in bond investments. Our supplements from the Corporate Banking. For ICBC, our credits to the corporates, we grasp the window for the corporates after the Spring Festival. First, the volume increased with high growth of loans. In Q1, the corporate loans have increased by CNY 300 billion. The balance was over CNY 18 trillion, the first of its kind, providing solid foundation for the real economy.
The structure is optimized, meeting the requirements for the industries. Our supply of credit to the industrial, to the technology finance was over CNY 4 trillion. Our increase to two majors have increased by CNY 70 billion. Our reserve has been strengthened. We continue to solidify the medium to long-term credit extension, which is balanced. Our supply for the projects has accounted for 90%, which paved the foundation for the total. Looking ahead, ICBC will fully implement the spirit of the April 28th Central Political Bureau meeting, we will continue to enhance both intensity and precision for our support for the real economy. We'll further increase corporate lending to ensure the loan growth remains aligned with the economic growth and effective credit demands. In terms of allocation, we'll focus on the need during the 15th Five-Year Plan period.
We'll optimize our corporate lending structure, strengthen our core responsibilities, and increase support for consumer services. We'll support the water networks, new generation power grids, computing networks, new generation communication networks. With our comprehensive financial services, we will focus on major projects under the 15th Five-Year Plan, including more than 100 key projects. With targeted measures, we will continue to optimize our reserve in credit. Thank you.
Please identify yourself with name and institution.
Thank you for the opportunity. I'm from CITIC Securities. I would like to congratulate ICBC's stellar performance. My question relates to the fee and commission income. We saw the continued growth momentum. There's a continuation in the equities, but there's continuous fluctuations. What is your outlook for the growth of fee and commission income? We can recognize there's significant amount of realized gains from the sale of AC assets. How should we view it?
The questions will be answered by finance and accounting department.
Thank you for your questions. In the first quarter, we actively responded to the complex changes in the external environment, continuously improved the comprehensive financial service capabilities and achieved a steady growth in that fee and commission income.
We expect to maintain the top position total income, laying a solid foundation throughout the year. In terms of retail and corporate, we actively seized the favorable opportunities in the capital markets, coordinated efforts across different business lines to improve our research capabilities. We achieved double-digit growth in Wealth Management and Pension Services. Also, we have double our income from agency precious metals. On the other hand, we implement the policies expanding domestic demand and supporting consumptions, improve customer experience, and we have carry out coordinated peak season marketing. We further develop our ecosystems to increase investment to promote consumption, driving a positive year-on-year growth in domestic third-party payment income.
From corporate side, we continuously strengthen the foundation of corporate clients, promote the development of new financial infrastructures for settlements and digital empowerment, and continuously optimize asset services such as bond underwriting and investment guarantees and syndicated loans, leading to a slight increase in income from cash management and settlement services and investment banking. Third, we actively seized several opportunities in the capital market. We achieved double-digit growth in Wealth Management and Pension Services. We support a steady growth of fee and commission income from corporate clients. Looking ahead, as positive macroeconomic policies kicked in, capital market expectations remain positive. Expanding domestic demand is expected to support the recovery of consumption. ICBC will leverage our strength and customer base, extensive channels, comprehensive services and financial technology to resolve the risk and challenges and create value through service.
We will provide over 140 million corporate clients and over 780 million individual clients with a broad range of financial products and high-quality financial services. Overall, we are optimistic about fee and commission income for the entire year, we expect a positive growth trend. We'll focus on three areas to improve quality and efficiency. First, seize opportunities, enhance wealth management efficiency. Second is to strengthen customer relationship and improve quality of core products. Third is to enhance synergy and achieve breakthroughs in comprehensive services, combining financial insight, technology integration, connectivity and funding, explore comprehensive financial solutions and around the entire life cycle. For the other non-interest income under the high base. Last year, we have diversified growth drivers for non-interest income. Our non-interest income come from tax investment, bond, and exchange profit and loss.
In the first quarter, our non-interest income continues high-growth trend. We still face pressure throughout the year. As you mentioned, the geopolitical tensions and capital markets. We will seize the opportunities. To leverage the strength in order to capture the market opportunities to improve our revenues. Regarding bonds, we strictly follow accounting standards, study the market, seize volatility opportunities and optimize trading strategies, investment structure. In terms of equity, we seize structural investment opportunities and tap into the potentials of emerging business such as asset management and wealth management. Regarding exchange gains and losses, we will closely monitor exchange rate trends and conduct in-depth market and monitor analysis to achieve sustainable development.
The third question, please.
Thank you very much. I'm Richard Xu from Morgan Stanley. My question concerns asset quality. How did ICBC's NPL formation perform last year? What is the outlook for this year for NPL formation and the trend of NPL? Especially now we see the Middle East geopolitical conflict. What specific impact it has on ICBC's asset quality?
For this question, I'll invite credit management department to answer with supplements from international banking department.
Thank you. As you have seen last year, our annual report has been released previously. Our NPL formation ratio was relatively low for the past years. From the annual reports, we have seen that it was relatively strong among peers. For Q1, you have seen from the Q1 reports, if we compare with ourselves, the ratio was relatively stable. According to the pattern, every year's Q1 NPL formation was higher. From this perspective, we are confident that for the full year, our asset quality will be stable. You can see that ICBC has been in credit risk management. We have been outperforming other banks. In this year, we continue to promote the Three Gateways and Seven Color Pool in managing onboarding.
We do proactive prevention of risks and enhancing the disposal of NPLs with high quality unchanged to address the changes of the markets to keep stable of our asset quality. For your second question about the Middle East situation. After the exposure of the risks, the impacts in the short term have limited impact on our asset quality first. Our direct credit exposure to the Middle East is relatively limited in both size and concentration. The exposure account for a small share of the group and are mainly to sovereign-backed entities, large SOEs, and high-quality multinational corporations. Second, after the exposure, we have formed the special forces. We do analysis on the risks and do inspection of risks on time. Based on the list of customers and case by case, do the analysis of the risks.
Up to now, we see limited impacts on ICBC's asset quality. I will introduce to you the situation of Middle East. After the breakout of Middle East conflict in February, we followed the situation and developments of Middle East situation. We performed the necessary work to keep the stability of our work. The safety of our employees and assets is ensured. The Middle East is also very important region for our internationalization of the group, and we will coordinate the development and security. Thank you.
The fourth question, please. Please identify yourself with your name and institution.
Thank you for the opportunity. I'm analyst from CICC. Congratulate ICBC on your performance. Exceed expectation. I'd like to ask about NIM. Although we do not disclose NIM figures, we can infer that this figure has stabilized and even rebounded. What are the reasons behind this? If the first quarter figures is very impressive, can this trend continue throughout the second and the third quarters? Can you break it down further on the asset and the liability side?
The questions on NIM will be answered by Asset and Liability Management Department.
Thank you for your question. For the first quarter, the NIM is 1.29%. It stabilized with a slight increase of 1 basis point. The increase of about 2 basis points compared to the previous quarter. The factors behind the change is due to four factors. It is because of a joint effort of both timing and our, and our effort. First, monetary policy remained moderately loose and largely stable, creating a favorable external environment for stabilization of NIM. In the first quarter, the central bank did not cut reserve requirement ratio or interest rate. The LMO rates remained stable. With the decline in key-term SHIBOR within 10 basis points, the nominal LPR deposit rates have remained unchanged for 11 months.
A relatively stable monetary policy and interest rate environment alleviated the downward pressure on bank asset returns, which was a substantial positive factor for NIM. Second, the comprehensive cost of liabilities continued to decline, supporting the improvement of the NIM. On one hand, high interest products issued earlier matured with the amount of fixed term deposits over three years maturing in the first quarter, accounting for 35% of the annual total, which led to a decrease of 13 basis points in the interest rate of various deposits. On the other hand, due to the continued availability of liquidity, market interest rates declined moderately, resulting in a 15 basis points decrease in the interest rate of interbank liabilities.
Third, the efficiency of asset and liability allocation has been further improved. On the asset side, we focus on loans and bonds with the average daily proportion on these two investments increasing by 0.5 percentage points. The structure of major assets continued to improve, which enhanced the overall interest bearing asset returns. On the liability side, we avoided involution, striving to enhance the stability of funds, strictly implementing the Interest Rate Adjustment Safeguard Clause and the Self-Discipline Initiative for Interbank Deposits, further reducing costs, improving efficiency. Fourth, the postponement of interest rate cuts by major economies is beneficial to the stability of the NIM in overseas operations.
Affected by the rising global inflation rates and intensified geopolitical conflicts, major developed economies have postponed their interest rate cut schedules, improving the environment for commercial banks' international operations and enhancing the stability of overseas operations. The first quarter, the contribution of Foreign Exchange and overseas segments increased by 0.6 percentage points. In terms of the trend of the NIM throughout the year, we maintain our view from the beginning of the year.
The NIM will turn positive year-over-year, and the NIM will continue to decline slowly. This is based on the following two factors. On one hand, the NIM, the interest margin between deposit and loans in traditional sectors is expected to stabilize or even rebound. There are signs of marginal stabilization in loan yields. Loan yields on a comparable basis are roughly in line with the interest rates on newly issued loans. With the repricing progress of existing loans reaching 91%, the decline in loan yield is expected to continue narrowing. Second, there's still room for the deposit interest rate to decrease. Interest rate on newly absorbed time deposits remains low and significantly lower than that of existing time deposits. Assuming policy interest rates remain unchanged, declining deposit costs expected to exceed that of loan.
On the other hand, when the interest margin between deposits and loans stabilize, the price of bond interbank liabilities will affect the NIM level. Currently, the repricing cycle for bond assets is longer than that of credit assets, and the yield on new bond investments is declining. Bond investment will become the main factor affecting the trend of NIM in the next phase. Under the background of diversified liability structures, commercial banks are increasing their efforts to absorb interbank liabilities. The interest costs of interbank liabilities have decreased at present, if market interest rates experience significant fluctuations or reverse and rise in the future, it will also affect NIM level. Thank you.
The fifth question, please. Please identify your name and institution before raising questions.
I'm Ma Kunpeng from China Securities. My question concerns retail AUM wealth management and deposits. Could you introduce the retail AUM growth in Q1 and the AUM mix evolvement? What is the current products mix in wealth management? What are client preferences, and what is the future development plan? Are we seeing any signs of accelerated deposit outflows into wealth management or other asset management products? What was the maturity and rollover situation of deposits in Q1? What targeted measures have been taken to stabilize and grow deposits?
This question will be answered by Personal Banking Department with supplements from ICBC Wealth Management.
Thank you for your question. Our retail AUM growth in Q1. The growth is strong. Following the changes of the markets in Q1, the average, daily average AUM was up by CNY 1.78 trillion to CNY 25.8 trillion. The AUM balance was over CNY 26 trillion at the end of Q1. Such aggregate make us the leading position as a commercial bank managing the largest amount of personal financial assets. For the mix, we also do analysis. In the personal financial assets, savings deposits accounted for 77.5%. The non-deposit AUM, 22.5%. Stabilizing from the end of last year, the change of AUM mix is controllable by ICBC. For the product mix, client preferences, and how do we see future plans? For the product structure, our products is centered on deposits, WMPs, funds, insurance, and private banking selected products, and also private banking products for deposits.
We have products which have guaranteed principal and interest for funds. We follow a broad access selective screening approach to build a long-term and high-performing core allocation. Our private banking platform offers quantitative index enhanced strategies with differentiated products for insurance. We are shifting from investment-oriented products toward protection-oriented solutions. Life insurance, commercial pension products, and health and medical insurance are growing remarkably. From such mix, our wealth management products, funds, and insurance are the important non-deposit products are growing strongly. In Q1, we have seen some new changes in WMPs in terms of clients. We have 784 million personal customers. They are categorized into different segmentations. They prefer low volatility, stable return projects such as wealth management and fixed income funds. Of course, deposits account for more. High net worth clients have more diversified needs.
For example, in Q1, the private quantitative strategies, cross-border allocation, and family trusts were growing remarkably. Meanwhile, demand for full life cycle wealth management is becoming more evident. For example, we have seen that the elderly and children segments have strong need for retirement planning, health protection, and wealth inheritance. For the future of wealth management business, the personal financial wealth management is the main battlefields of commercial bank. We will continue to put clients into the center of our business. We will promote wealth management into every family. We aim to build a full life cycle scenario-based service model powered by digital capabilities by integrating financial services into clients' everyday ecosystems. We are moving towards a one entry point full service model so as to build differentiated competitiveness and support the steady growth of client wealth. We are fully confident to achieving so.
You also raised questions about changes of deposits, the rollover after maturity. From our observation in Q1, the daily average deposits increased by CNY 1.46 trillion, maintaining stable growth. The savings deposit growth remains within a reasonable range. We have not seen any unexpected acceleration of outflows in line with the market change. For the maturities, as mentioned by Mr. Fu from Asset and Liability Management, we have the maturity ratio of 35% from the perspective of savings deposits. The rollover ratio was over 90%. Therefore, for the matured funds, the rollover to the demand deposits was remarkable without no remarkable outflows or migration of deposits. Our measures to stabilize and grow deposits. First, we give into full play ICBC's group-wide advantage from GBC dimensions to empower personal finance to develop, to grow and stable our deposits.
First, we are strengthening coordination between corporate and retail business to expand funding sources at the origin. We focus on payroll services, individual merchants, and Social Security cards as strategic entry points. We have seen robust growth, and we will continue our efforts in this regard. Second, we are building out scenarios to expand customer fund flows through-
Fund flow management to stabilize and grow our deposits, especially the cash flow, can bring fee-based income. We improve customer segmentation capability. We will make good use of AI and giving to full play the online and offline coordination in our strategic capabilities to enlarge the reservoir of our personal finance funds to enhance our capabilities and competitiveness to solidify the foundation for deposit growth. I'll make some supplements for the deposit migration. According to the data from financial service, the non-banking deposits increased by CNY 2.3 trillion. People's savings grew by CNY 0.78 trillion, reflecting that some of the savings deposits sold to WMPs, the aggregates remained stable. By Q1, the industry's WMP aggregates increased by over 9% by seasonal reasons. Compared with the end of last year, the volume was down by 3.8%.
For ICBC Wealth Management, the WMP volume was increased by 4% more. We will continue to enlarge our CFS to improve our capabilities to serve the customers. Thank you.
The sixth question, please. Please identify yourself with name and institution.
I'm an analyst from Guosen Securities. My question is related to retail asset quality. How's the asset quality of various retail products? When can we see improvement in NPLs? What is the current situation regarding mortgage loan defaults?
The question will be answered by personal finance department.
Since the beginning of this year, China's economy has shown steady progress with structural improvements, there is external instability, uncertainty, and there are still some challenges in domestic economic operations. The asset quality of personal loans at ICBC face certain pressures with slight increase in non-performing loan rate.
However, after considering factors related to risk disposal, our situation is consistent with the market. In the first quarter, personal loan non-performing indicator remained stable and overall risk was under control. The personal loan non-performing rate remained within a reasonable range compared with counterparties. For personal housing loans, since 2022, it's mainly due to the combined impact of factors such as slowing growth in resident income, declining asset prices, structural pressures in job market. The non-performing rate of mortgage loans has currently shown short-term upward trend and it remains within a reasonable range. It is still an important source of our revenue. Our advantages are they are genuine transactions and high-quality collateral. Short-term fluctuations do not affect the fundamental attributes, and it is remain a high-quality credit assets for our bank.
As macroeconomic policies kick in, the economy is showing signs of stabilization and recovery. The residents' confidence in future income growth is gradually being restored. The Politburo conference has mentioned to mitigate risks and to push forward urbanization. We are seeing signs of housing price stabilizations in the Tier 1 cities, and we are confident that the asset quality of mortgage will be restored and the systemic risk is controllable. For the mortgage loan default in terms of asset, we see whether there's an increase in default rate, but we see they are stabilized. We're not seeing a default rate at a massive scale. We also like to brief you on the personal consumer loans. We have seen a double decline in both the amount and the rate.
In last year, we focused on adjusting the risk control models and onboarding standard. The optimization of strategies and product reinforcements yielded preliminary results. The deferred default rates for various terms have been gradually reduced to the lowest levels in recent years. For the non-performing rate of personal business loan has also slightly decreased. Affected by a combination of factors such as macroeconomic environment, policy support, and ongoing adjustment of real estate market, the asset quality of personal business loan has shown periodic fluctuations. The historic disposal of personal business loans has been lower than that of peers in ICBC, and with minimal write-offs, we have maintained the current quality level, demonstrating the high quality of our customer base, precise risk control, and strong resilience in business development.
In the next phase, we'll continue to strengthen and solidify the Three Gateways in credit risk management, establish a comprehensive risk control system for the entire process. We have a comprehensive dynamically and continuously optimized product access. We will further enhance data infrastructure capabilities, and to build risk control models covering the entire process. With the continued implementation of macro control policies and the effectiveness of structural fiscal support, it's estimated that the rate of loan deterioration will slow down.
Next question, please.
Thank you. I'm Ni Jun from Guangfa Securities. I want to ask about the results mix. We have seen the operating income increase, which is remarkable. For the full year performance, will you see front load, a loaded one or relatively smooth? On the profit side, will profit generally stabilize and improve within the year? Among scale, NIM, fee income, financial markets provisions, which item do you believe has the most certainty in contributing to the full year performance? Which item is most likely to become a major source of volatility?
Your question concerning forecasts of profitability, I'll invite finance accounting department to answer.
For Q1, the key indicators achieved the best start in recent years. Our operating income, if we do break down, the net profits continue to play the bedrock of the revenue. It accounts for 75%-80% of revenue. For Q1, it's the first time to growth turning positivity since 2023. This comes from our work and the maturity of the high interest rate deposits. The Q1, the interest expense was down by over 10%, driving the increase of 7.5% of net interest income. For the non-interest income, it continued to play a strong support, up by 11.6%. Fee-based income was increasing the best of its kind in recent years. The other non-interest income increased by almost 39%.
It comes from the dividends from the policies, also comes from our actions and the market window, which is temporary. Bringing our profitability, which is good in Q1. The operating environment is still complicated. First, the net interest margin was stabilizing, but it's still in the downward pressure. For non-interest income, for example, fee-based income also face pressures from policy changes and market changes. We still face pressure brought by the fee contract concession to the real economy, and also the geopolitical tensions and the interest rate trend of bond market, Forex bond market also faces uncertainties. We will make our efforts to tackle the uncertainties of the markets. We will increase our main business. We will take into effect three aspects of measures.
First, to solidify the fund-fundamental base of net interest income, we will balance total growth with structural optimization, increase the volume of substantive loan, optimize the structure, and pace of new interest earning assets. Also, we will enhance management of both interest bearing and liability yields and strictly control high costs like liabilities, so as to ensure the stable growth of interest income. Second, we will increase the contribution of non-interest income. We will seize opportunities in retirement finance and capital markets to create new growth drivers for wealth management, update the payments and settlement cross-border services and customers, custody systems, and to serve the customers' needs with CFS. Third, we will strengthen asset quality management to contain risk costs.
We'll continue to enhance our comprehensive risk management system, coordinate risk prevention and control in key areas, persistently prevent delinquencies, and control NPL, strengthen collection and disposal efforts to better contain the risk of costs. We are confident that building on the strong performance in Q1, we will continue to deliver results-Which is sustainable for the shareholders. Thank you.
Next question, please. Please identify yourself with name and institution.
Thank you for the opportunity. I'm analyst from Zheshang Securities. I would like to congratulate ICBC on the impressive performance. ICBC has been active in science and technology finance. There's a lot of layouts in this regard aligned with the national strategy, especially the Five Priorities of Finance. The 15th Five-Year Plan emphasized digital and intelligent transformation. ICBC's business have developed rapidly. How can ICBC articulate its strength to the capital market from the perspective of digital and intelligent transformation?
This question will be answered by Urban Finance Research Institute.
Thank you for your question. As you mentioned, ICBC has long been deeply integrated into the national development strategy. We are the first layout of the AIC business because we recommend that technology innovation requires patient capital. Through diversified tools such as equity investment, debt to equity swaps, we have provided long-term and stable capital support to many science and technology enterprises. By the end of first quarter, the balance of loans in this regard reached CNY 5 trillion. These figures make us market leaders in this regard.
As we mentioned, the 15th Five-Year Plan has mentioned in the digital and intelligent five times. We know there's two fold meanings. To improve the supply of finance and to adapt its changes. The second is to improve the digital and intelligent transformations of ICBC and to restructure our procedures and our business. In this regard, we're building a new differentiated competitive strength advantages. We would like to leverage our comprehensive licensing advantages. We are building multiple scenarios and to providing comprehensive financial services to our clients.
We give special attention to the role of the AIC in providing patient capitals. We have onboarded 53 projects. In terms of providing insights and intelligence, we have undertook more over 2,400 investment banking projects, an increase of 40%. We actively empower the digital transformations of enterprises. We provided support in terms of ICBC Treasury GlobalPay and Fund Supervision Cloud, offering account service to fund supervision, technical consulting to technology output. We embrace AI and accelerate the transition from D-ICBC to AI-ICBC. We use our self-developed LLM models to embrace artificial intelligence and to establish the systems of AI-ICBC. The intelligent and digital transformation is going into more depth. We believe that with the support, we will have more economy of scales and to support the quality development of ourself.
The next question, please. Please identify yourself with name and institution. Thank you.
I'm Shen Juan from Huatai Securities. Congratulations on your strong results for Q1. My question concerns bond investment. We have seen that last year there was a notable increase in income contribution from bond investment. Given the recent increase in bond market volatility and shifts in the interest rate environment, how do you view the outlook for the bond market, and what will be your investment strategy going forward?
Your question will be answered by financial markets department.
Thank you very much for your question. Our financial markets business centered around serving the real economy. We centered on quantity pricing, increasing including RMB and Forex. We increased our capabilities of business and market competitiveness. The interbank market making share was stable at 20%. The share in the four big banks was 31%. This is a recognition from the market for ICBC. Thank you very much for your support for financial market business. In the future, we admit that the external environment is still complex, influenced by geopolitical conflicts.
Our economic foundation is strong. Our policy will be sustainable. Our monetary policy will continue to support the real economy. Against such background, our bond investment will continue to have both ceiling and floor with contained risks. We have such backdrop faced with complex environment. Our financial market business will continue to committing to fulfill their potential and balance our pricing quantity and risks and optimize our investments and income mix. First, we will continue to fulfill our role as a major bank by actively support bond financing for the real economy.
We will continue to support the government bond issuance and support the key national priorities, the five key areas to contribute to China's modernization through bond investment. Second, we'll further optimize portfolio structure to build up value reserves. We will allocate across bond types, tenors, portfolios and currencies to enhance sustainability and resilience of portfolio. Third, we will strengthen our trading capabilities and aim to translate market volatility into earnings. We will continue to promote digitalization and actively capture opportunities from spread across instruments, maturities and credits. We will balance carry income and trading gains while managing both short-term performance and long-term value creation. Finally, we'll balance development and risk control by strengthening risk identification and management, enhance our forward-looking and countercyclical risk assessment capabilities, optimize duration positioning and improve the portfolio's resilience to interest rates fluctuations. Thank you.
The next question, please. Please identify yourself with name and the institution.
I'm from Changjiang Securities. My name relates to internationalization in the context of escalating geopolitical tension. What are the opportunities and challenges for the international operations as the largest bank in China and globally? How can ICBC leverage its strength to promote the internationalization of the RMB?
The question will be answered by International Banking Department.
Thank you for your questions. In terms of opportunities, the trend of economic globalization remains unchanged despite the geopolitical tensions. The interests of countries are deeply intertwined and open culture remains the mainstream. China continues to make new progress. We are the hub of manufacturing centers. The total foreign trade increased by 15% year-on-year. The RMB has become the top three trade financing and payment currencies globally.
The 15th Five-Year Plan outline proposes to steadily expand institutional opening up and build a new high level open eco-economic systems, promote the high quality development of the Belt and Road Initiative. We have also noticed that when the per capita GDP exceeds $10,000, there will be experienced a peak enterprise globalization. The China's figure has above $30,000 for three consecutive years. Our direct investment abroad has remained around $150 billion , and the total overseas assets exceeding $9 trillion. We can provide comprehensive financial services for business going abroad and business going in. We've seen that geopolitical situations are characterized by long-term complex and uncertain features. Geopolitical conflicts are frequent and there's profound changes in international balance of power, and there is disruptions in global economies.
The major economies has gone into the rate-cutting cycles. It has bring more intense competition for our international peers. Our bank's overseas operation maintain a stable and progressive development trend. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, we will continue to deepen our international operations. We will push. For the second questions, for the internationalization of RMB. As the ICBC bank, after 40 years of development, we established solid foundation of a global network clearance systems and technology systems as of the end of 2025. We have built a global financial service network covering 69 countries and regions. Through self-development, strategic acquisition and equity partnership, we established business cooperation relationship with over 1,400 foreign banks in more than 1,140 countries, cover all six continents and major international financial centers.
We offer services to over 40 million corporate clients and 770 million individual customers. We offer RMB clearing bank in 12 countries, offering 24/7 RMB clearing services. Through our core banking systems, we achieve seamless integration. We adhere to the principle of providing global service to global customers, and we have done a lot of work in internationalization of RMB. We use the BRI, China-Europe Business Council, and other multilateral mechanisms to extend the RMB's friend circle and solidify the foundation of cooperation. We also worked together with CIPS and mBridge and cross-border QR code payments to enhance the digital intelligence service capabilities of cross-border RMB. Improve new financial infrastructure such as clearing, payment and custody. For six years in a row, we used the Trinity actions to launch the cross-border RMB comprehensive financial solutions.
We have dedicated CNY 1 trillion to connect domestic and foreign banks for a special financing quota, providing comprehensive support to eligible domestic and foreign enterprise. We will support new quality, productive force, digital trade and Chinese enterprises going global, promoting high quality development.
The next question, please. Please identify yourself with name and institution.
I'm Chen Shaoxing from Industrial Securities. My question concerns AI. In what specific ways is AI currently empowering ICBC? How do you quantify the benefits or cost saving from AI applications? In the future, what are your plans for AI investments? Looking ahead, how do you see AI reshaping the banking business model? Thank you.
I'll invite fintech department to answer your question.
Just now, Mr. Yang from Finance Research Institution has introduced our arrangements for the Digital Drivers, which is one of our strategies. We have four perspectives in empowerment. First, reducing cost and improving efficiency. That is to improve the working efficiency of employees. For example, we launched trade feeding, supporting employees in interactive dialogues in trading so as to increase the efficiency and number of tradings. Second, risk management. We use the empowerment of big models in the anti-fraud links, we train the model to automatically identify the risks out of the risks, so as to increase our capability of detection. Second, we refine the personal characteristics of AI use in mobile banking, the machine in the outlets. Through natural language interaction, we achieved one-to-one interaction for the customers with company to the customers.
Another is the empowerment of decision making to make it more digital. We have developed tool in investment fund. In trading data, it can make judgments to conclude a investment report and to improve the decision-making in bond investment, empowering over CNY 100 billion investment of bond. How to quantify the investments of AI or the application of AI? AI progress is very fast, as a blue sea, its investment has the market consensus, which raise attention from the market. We have made some exploration in mechanism. Group have the sufficient computing capacity. Second, we will step up talent development to ensure we have the expert team. Thirdly, we will strengthen the mechanism assurance.
We will integrate the group team so as to ensure the organization in the group, and also we use external institutions like college and companies to make our technology advanced. How do we see its future? We believe AI is not just a tool for improving efficiency, but it also reshapes the fundamental logic of commercial banking. First, it's the change of service models. With AI, the financial services are more targeted and personalized. The end-to-end services will be a new normal for the services of customers. The coordination of financial and non-financial services will be possible. The new shape of the financial services is expected in the future. Second, the organizational effectiveness. We will lift the employees from the standardized and repetitive tasks while supporting complex decision-making, so as to ensure a personal efficiency to a group-wide efficiency improvement.
As automatic decision-making and link of AI agents is progressing so that we can have more controllable and smarter AI. This is also a focus of our future work. We believe these three aspects are our highlights of our future work for ICBC. We will follow closely the development of the technology and the market so as to promote the construction of AI and improve our efficiency of work and the competitiveness of the AI agents. Thank you.
Due to time limit, we shall conclude the Q&A session. If there are any questions, please feel free to contact our investment relation teams for further communication. Thank you for your questions and thank you for the response. Next, we will invite Mr. Tian Fenglin, the Board Secretary, for the conclusion.
Dear investors and analysts, thank you all for joining our first quarter performance briefing. We've had an open and professional exchange on topics such as operating conditions, business development, risk control, future planning, and AI application, which yielded very positive results. This year, facing a complex and changing external environment, ICBC adhered to the steady operations and compliant development, with all business areas proceeding smoothly and steadily.
The overall quality of our assets remain under control, and the support for the real economy in key areas has continued to strengthen, leading to a steady improvement in operational efficiency. These achievements would not have been possible without the long-term trust, understanding, and support of all our investors. At the same time, we are also keenly aware that our current business developments still face many challenges. Regarding issues that you are concerned about, such as performance results, business layout, capital replenishment, risk management, dividend policies, we will further organize and study them one by one, and continuously optimize information disclosure and respond properly to market concerns, and continuously improve our management level in order to better repay the trust of investors with more solid performance. The capital market is a market of confidence and also a market of long-term value.
In the next step, we will continue to adhere to the fundamental measure of finance, focus on our core responsibilities and main business, promote the five transformations, consolidate the foundation of compliance and risk control, and strive to achieve higher quality and more sustainable development. Once again, I would like to thank all of our investors and analysts for your continuous support for ICBC. I look forward to continuing to work hand in hand with you, building confidence together, promoting development, and sharing achievements together.
The meeting today is now concluded. Thank you. The holiday is approaching. We would like to wish you a happy holiday. Thank you.