Esteemed investors, analysts, dear media friends, the old friends and new friends who care about PSBC, welcome to attend PSBC 2023 Annual Result Conference. I'm the Vice President of PSBC and the Secretary of the Board, Du Chunye. Today I'm going to moderate this conference. We're going to continue to adopt the live broadcast, online live streaming, phone call, and text broadcast, and we provide simultaneous interpretation service. Hopefully we can have a full discussion with you. Thank you for your unflagging support and care to PSBC, and also thank you to attend this result conference out of your busy schedule. Thank you very much. Next, I'd like to introduce the team of PSBC attending today's conference. They are: Executive Director and President, Mr. Liu Jianjun; Executive Director, Vice President and CRO, Madame Yao Hong; Vice President, Mr. Xu Xueming; Vice President and CIO, Mr.
Niu Xinzhuang, Director of the Retail, Mr. Liang Shidong. At the same time, the directors supervise employees at PSBC. Also, through different modes, we'll watch today's conference to understand the care from the market. All the financial data from today's result conference, unless otherwise stated, are adopting IFRS. First of all, President Liu will give the lecture, followed by Q&A. So the floor is yours, President Liu.
Esteemed investors, analysts, dear media friends, good morning. I'd like to thank you for your unflagging support and care for PSBC in the past one year. In front of the multiple challenges and difficulties intertwined with each other, we withstood the difficulties and made progress. And we not only accomplished the expected development goals, also we have encountered a lot of positive changes. And we have realized the social responsibility and great values.
First of all, the business performance improved steadily, and the development trend was stable and good in 2023. The operating revenue of the bank is CNY 342.9 billion, year on year, up by 2.24%. The net profit attributable to the shareholders: net CNY 863.3 billion, year on year, up by 1.23%. Total asset: CNY 15.7 trillion, up by 11.8%. Total liability is CNY 14.8 trillion, up by 11.54%. The good news is the development momentum of the PSBC is very positive. On one hand, we can see the continued optimization of the asset liability structures maintained the advantages of the name. The proportion of the new loans to the real economy in total loans surpassed 100% loan-to-deposit ratio is up by 1.68 percentage points from the end of last year.
The deposit interest payment ratio is seeing a dramatic decrease of 8 BP, and the NIM stood at 2% and above. The NIM, the net interest income, year on year, up by 3%, maintained the relatively good momentum in the industry. On the other hand, after stripping one-off factor, the net fees and commission income year on year increased by 12.05%, demonstrating the strong momentum of the intermediary business. We always focus on the risk prevention and control as our core competitiveness. We maintained very positive asset quality. The NPL rate: 0.83%. NPL formation rate: 0.85%. Overdue rate: 0.91%. Provision coverage ratio: 347.57%, maintained all at the premium level among the peers. The three international rating agencies, i.e., Fitch, Moody's, and S&P, again granted PSBC the best credit rating result among Chinese commercial banks. It has risen to the 12th in the global top 1,000 bank ranking.
All of this always showcases in front of the new challenges and the new momentums, we are very resilient and fully acknowledged by the communities at large. Second, the five growth poles have achieved initial results, and the business characteristics are more distinctive. The five differentiated growth poles have become the new engine to generate the development of the PSBC. The balance of the credit as differentiated growth poll has surpassed CNY 5 trillion, accounting for 62%. And to fully support the real economy's development, also showcase the advantages of the name at the asset side. The agriculture-related finance are our golden friends. The aggregate loans grown by CNY 346.5 billion. The balance increased by CNY 2.15 trillion, up by 19.16%. Incrementally speaking, we are record high. At the same time, we keep the balance of the price and the risk.
The inclusive finance are navigating across the different storms. The loans to the SMEs, netting increased by CNY 435.4 billion, up by 31.27%, incrementally historically high, generating the corporate FPA to CNY 4.68 trillion, up by 26.83%. The number of the customers is close to 1.6 million and up by 15.58%. Active credit extension accelerated within 15 months. The balance surpassed CNY 150 billion. NPL lowered than 0.5%, featuring the potential high-speed, low-cost, better performance experience, and high quality. The wealth management are also accelerated. AUM size is more than CNY 15 trillion, up by close to 10%. VIP customers with AUM of CNY 50,000 above surpass 51 million, up by close to 9%. Fujia and above with AUM of CNY 500,000 and above. The premium customers close to 17% of the growth. Interbank finance also improved. Together We Thrive platform's registered institutions is reaching 2,400+.
Cumulative transactions is more than CNY 2 trillion. Has discounted bills of more than CNY 1 trillion among the peers. Third, remarkable results have been achieved in innovation and reform, and more impetus from internal aspects has been generated. Innovation has become the core momentum of PSBC's development, demonstrating effective results. In terms of the business mode, the corporate finance 1+ N system of the operation and service has been fully demonstrated, generating the size of the loans to the corporate income from the corporate finance. And number of the products utilized by the customers also improved. The credit-ordered future-oriented model also lent effectively. The approved credit amount is more than CNY 1.3 trillion, supporting the credit handling bank customer seek growth by 91%. So this kind of customers means that the settlement and the loans extensions will be mainly handled by the banks. Intensive operation have been improved.
The efficiency of the consumption credit operation promoted by centralized retail credit audit improved by 42%. Small loan review and approval reduced 60% of the personnel. Centralized post loan management promote the per capita capacity of the managers of the SME customers up by 30%. In terms of the reform in the institutions, the structures of the talents optimized, and the talents in the science tech categories and the sales categories accounting for up by 0.25 percentage points and 1.79 percentage points, respectively. Reform in the secondary branches are also consolidated. The institutions has been reduced by 36% for six pilot branches. The industry personnel reduced, and the salespeople increased by almost 1,000. In terms of the sci-tech empowerment, the IT engineering and the also investment in these R&D autonomous platforms, agile R&D also improved by 14 percentage points.
New generation personal business core systems also granted by PBOC's fintech development first prize, Mobile Banking 9.0, featuring the services provided featuring the AI space, digital office, and video services. Experiences have been optimized. More importantly, the innovation transformation has been deemed as a fashion and behaviors across the whole bank. Managers are encouraging innovations. Employees dare to make innovations, and they are full of vitality and dedication, and they dare to think about the future and make changes. So now PSBC has become a very vigorous bank among peers. Reflecting the whole year, we keep the same pace with the recovery of the national economy and withstand the test of the cyclical swings, stabilize the revenues increase and profits increase.
Against the navigation of the industry transformation, we sharpen our ability, and we also accumulate the high-quality development potential, and we march towards the ultimate goal of the first-class large retail bank looking to the future. China's economy is full of potential and vigorous. Long-term fundamentals yet to change. The Central Financial Work Conference has pointed out the direction of the financial work, especially the central government has pointed out a lot of promulgation of the policies which are in line with the resource and elements of PSBC. Effectively promote the rejuvenation of the rural areas, promote the development of the rural industry, promote and increase the revenues of the farmers, and stabilize the economy.
So that the thousands and tens of thousands of villages will be full of vitality, optimize the doing business environment, and to support by policy incentives to the private sectors, and also at the same time optimize the consumption institutions and the policies around trading policy to encourage the consumption to encourage the potential to be unleashed, then stabilize the consumption, accelerate the new quality factor for productive forces to be unleashed, and finally to push forward the development of a bunch of the centralized innovative enterprises and sci-tech SMEs. PSBC always focused on servicing the agriculture businesses, SMEs, especially the specialized and sci-tech businesses, and also the rural and urban residents. We have the potential of the network and also the capital.
And so we together with our potential will fully optimize on the businesses and the technologies and the staff members and also branding to encounter new opportunities in 2024. PSBC will seize the very good opportunities from the recovery of the national economy and also the regulations from the macroeconomy to give unleash to the advantages. First of all, we will focus on completing five major chapters of the characteristics of the PSBC and accelerate the advantages development. So these are five major chapters or the five major missions by President Xi are the actually the point of the generation of the forces for the transformation of the economic growth and structural optimization of the economy. And so in this process, we have to do something and make some change. We will focus on the inclusive finance as the biggest features of our bank.
Also we will unleash the potential from the network as well as the customer base that we have deeply engaged and also the channels advantages for the integrated online and offline and also the biological and ecological environment from the logistics businesses. Based on the microloans, we will get around the entities of the agricultural operations and the supply chain industry chain as well as the ecological environment development featuring village, community, household, business, and the store to focus on the service on the agriculture businesses in a full coverage level and to march towards the servicing the rural rejuvenation as the major forces.
We will also make advantage of the coordinating advantages and digital intelligence trends and intensify the supply to the inclusive microloans and focus on the credit loans to the different categories of the products, focus on the key sectors, and also optimize the product portfolios to the key sectors and giving more support and investment to them. Focus on our role as integrated service provider for the inclusive finance. Also, we will focus on the high-tech businesses, the science tech SMEs, and the specialized segmented new businesses and generate the momentum from the parks and industries and also develop the 3 + 2 fintech features looking to the future oriented and also the U Prosper brand and specialized and also the whole life cycle dedicated integrated financial services provision.
And to build ourselves as a fintech forces, at the same time, we will dive in the green finance and elderly care finance to develop a brand. And the second, we will build new quality product forces to accelerate the new momentums. In face of the trends of the transformation, innovation will be the drawing forces, accelerate the high-quality productive forces, and total factor productivity enhancement will get rid of the traditional way of the growth to accelerate the high-quality development and first of all, digital financial innovation. At least 3% of the revenues annually will be put into the IT technology.
Also, the 14th Five-Year IT plan will be the guidance that the New Core plus 10 projects will be the generator to invest in the 400+ projects, especially we will mobilize the big data resources integrating the massive data from the sales, from the logistics, warehousing, from the capital settlement. We will also introduce the institutional data from outside to stimulate the potential of the data. We'll make use of AI, big data, Internet of Things, and to deepen the integration of the science tech data and businesses to realize the management of the marketing operation risk control and digital management and to reduce the cost and to optimize the efficiency of the management, create the values, and improve the quality to promote the efficiency enhancement.
Second, we should also accelerate innovation of the development model. Of course, we need to increase the active lending for retail finance. And of course, we should do more in terms of the rural finance consumption credit card. We should explore the 660 million customers for their potential. And of course, we should also try to seize the opportunity for it from the economic recovery, improvement in residential income, and capital market stabilization, help them grow their wealth. And of course, we should also try to come up with the OnePlus N operation and service innovation system. And we should help the organizations, the companies, small and medium-sized businesses, GBC to help them realize quantum development. Of course, we should also try to build the ecosystem. And of course, we need to improve the capital allocation and trading capability. Thirdly, we need to accelerate the reform of the operational system.
We need to promote the thorough institutional change. In Q2, we should launch the tier two organization reform. We try to move more human resources to the front office so that we can adapt to the new productive relations. Fourth, we should accelerate the innovation of the working mechanism. We need to focus on the needs of the market development and customers, and we foster talent. And of course, we need to focus on experts and cadre. And of course, we need all to improve the percentage of tech people and salespeople so that we can have the competitive and well-structured high-quality talent team. And of course, we also need to have the market-based incentives to improve their caliber and also their income. Thirdly, we need to implement the delicacy management, accelerate the development support.
Of course, we need to enhance the digital management to improve the efficiency and realize countercyclical development. Of course, we also need to accommodate both the interim and long-term development interests. We need to make necessary investments into the long-term development and also the short-term talent development, brand building. Of course, we also need to be very careful with financial resources. Of course, we need to improve the efficiency of human resources and have the balanced coordination, the capital resources so that we can actually make the best out of our resources. Of course, we also need to minimize the costs and improve the efficiency per capita and maximize the capital efficiency in terms of risk control. Of course, we need to focus on monitoring, control, resolution, and recheck to do a good job.
In terms of the existing business, of course, we need to take advantage of the indicators, monitoring models, smart technology. We can prevent from any risk. In terms of the increase of the business, of course, we need to have this management system that balances risk and yield with regard to the business. Of course, we need to scrutinize every factor of business and also the business procedure and customer service so that we can have more targeted businesses. The procedure can be smoother to create bigger value and realize better customer experience. In terms of operations management, we, of course, need to promote the modern business, the corporate modernization so that we can deepen the corporate culture and brand building so that we can have the first-class banking awareness. Those who cherish dream can win, and reformers will prevail, and confident people will, of course, win.
So that along the way, we can act on the arrangements from the central government. We, of course, need to have the resolve to conquer difficulties. Of course, we also need to use capability building, innovation, and delicate management to underpin our foundation so that we can reward our shareholders, customers, and all walks of society with our good results so that we can be your good bank that accompanies you. Thank you. Just now, expressed in those announcements, he had a review of the past year. We actually realized robust growth in our business performance in spite of the difficulties. Of course, he also talked about the striking features. Of course, that made us even more energetic. Of course, he also [gave an] outlook on 2024. We will seize the opportunity provided by economic recovery.
Of course, in those five priorities, we should find the best places for PSBC. Of course, we need to build the new productive forces with innovation. Of course, we also need to consolidate our internal strength with delicacy management to underpin our foundation. Of course, we will also increase our communication with the market so that we can bring you up to speed on the latest developments with PSBC.
Now it's time for Q&A. Today, on top of the people joining us here on site, you can also join us on the line. You can actually press star one to raise your question. Of course, if you join us online, you can leave your question or leave your comments in the chat box at the bottom of the screen. Our staff will collect your questions.
If you have a question, please put up your hand. Before you raise your question, please identify yourself. Now, first question, please. Row two on the left.
Thank you. China Securities, Mao Kunpeng, congratulations on your report card. Very, very high-quality performance, hard to come by. President Liu's announcement, actually, this is the most concise and most brief announcement. I can already feel the quality of PSBC. I'd like to make my question as concise as possible. Actually, last year, the assets scale grew very steadily. Loan-to-deposit ratio also increased. Looking out into 2024 this year, I'd like to ask about your plan for lending. Last year, we came under huge pressure in terms of NIM. You still managed to keep your NIM above 2%. How did you do that? What's your outlook for 2024 in terms of NIM? Thank you.
So actually, we came under huge pressure on the front of NIM. So everybody is watching closely the NIM performance. So now we would like to turn it over to President Liu Jianjun for this question.
So thank you to all the investors. And also thank you to the analysts and media friends for your long-term care for PSBC. As you can see, the past year of 2023, actually, we had a lot of tough days because NIM has been narrowing throughout the year. So according to the National Financial Regulatory Administration data, now the NIM for the whole industry is already now down to 1.69%. In this process, PSBC has been actively coping with the market changes. We accelerated the development of our differential priorities. We have achieved some countercyclical positive changes concentrated into two areas. The first one is net interest margin.
We actually keep it above 2% at 2.01% precisely. So second, our net interest income grew by 3%. If you take a closer look at it, it actually is 1.44 percentage points higher than in 2022. So in this highly homogeneous environment, we still pulled off this great achievement. This actually is attributable to our differential priorities. And overall, in terms of lending on the side of assets, basically, we stepped to this principle. That is desirable increment, optimized structure, balance between quantity and pricing. First, we focused on serving the real economy to realize a rational growth in total loan book. So that is our plan for the whole quantity. So you can see in the first half of last year, we pretty much delivered 70% of our lending plan. The rapid lending in the first half laid down a very solid groundwork for our annual work.
In the second half, most of our loans went to our differential growth priorities. Last year, the lending excluding notes increased by over 1 trillion, CNY 263.9 billion more than year-on-year growth last year. It's a record high. In terms of our priorities in lending, we still focused on our year-beginning target. That is our growth priorities. We promoted the optimization of our credit structure. I can also give you some data points. Basically, we focused on the development of the differential credit growth poles. We actually grew by CNY 554.3 billion. We're CNY 151.5 billion more than year-on-year growth last year. So there are five priorities. So this alone actually grew by CNY 554 billion. That is CNY 151 billion more than year-on-year growth last year. Our retail lending actually is higher by the average industry average by 4 percentage points.
Retail lending actually was pretty weak last year for the whole industry. However, our retail lending actually is higher by 4 percentage points than the industry average. Basically, our percentage of retail lending actually is higher than the industry average by 23 percentage points. This highlighted our advantage as a big retail heavyweight in this country. Through our hard work, we can take a look at what we have achieved basically on the side of assets. For the two small loans with pretty high RAROC, we made dual record highs. Small credit and loans to small businesses increased by CNY 257 billion and CNY 130.2 billion, respectively. These two products basically are concentrated on rural financing and MSEs. Basically, we have achieved growth exceeding 20% for 4 straight years. Percentage of these loans accounted for over 40% at 41.26% precisely.
So basically, we can give loans to people in real need, and this can also help stabilize our return from credit business. And second, mortgage growth topped the industry. The balance is CNY 2.34 billion, a net growth of CNY 76.2 billion. So this net growth is the top, is the biggest one in this industry. And then consumption lending has also recovered effectively. Our non-housing consumption loans and credit card growth actually exceeded CNY 90 billion. We're CNY 100 billion more than year-on-year growth last year. So basically, they fall under the same category. So you can see we had a growth of CNY 90 billion in this area. The fourth one is our active lending practices. And this has increasingly become a new growth point. The balance topped CNY 150 billion. We only did this for 15 months, and the balance already topped CNY 150 billion.
This business alone contributed 25% a quarter to the total differential growth drive. We had the balance development of different products. Now the balance of differential credit growth topped CNY 5 trillion, accounting for 62% of the overall loans outstanding. This effectively supported the real economy and also consolidated our NIM advantage. With liabilities, you can see the cost for deposits has been pretty rigid. We worked on promoting the high-quality loans at the deposits. We tried to consolidate our interest costs. On the one hand, we identified the standards for high-quality deposits, and the performance examination and management all focused on this. As a result, this can guide our branches to pay more attention to improving their high-quality deposits. Then, of course, we also made active efforts to manage the interest-bearing rate on deposits.
If we gave free hand to business, the branches, of course, would gradually increase this interest-bearing rate. We added a lot of the indicators in this regard into the performance evaluation. This can help us effectively manage the interest-bearing rate. Overall, 2023, the interest-bearing rate was 1.53%. This is the best performance among the peers as a listed bank. The comprehensive payment of the interest on the deposit and the revenues from this interest, the performance is very good. Also, we decreased the payout interest by 8 BP. These are the results of the balance sheet. The NIM improvement are supported by all of these performance and practices, maintaining our advantages. Regarding the arrangement of 2024, it's fair to say that we feel that the NIMs will get actually shrinked.
In this process, first of all, we will, as always, honor our schedule to differentiate our priorities. More credits will be given to these five priorities. At the same time, we will also guarantee the relative increase of the lending and maintain relatively flat of the stability versus last year. So in the next phase, at the liabilities side, probably we will make all efforts to guarantee the interest payment level. And through intensifying the management of the wealth and also the AUM performance examination to, say, reduce the cost for the deposits, especially the fixed-time cost. And then we will generate the management and control over both sides of the liability and assets. And we also do a lot of calculations on the benefits versus the cost.
So that across the whole bank, the cost for the interest payment can be actually based on the value trends, I believe, in the next year, although the margin of the NIM will at a very narrow end. But still, we're very confident that we can maintain the NIM better than the peers. And I want to try our best to reach that target on the whole, the balance sheet, both at the asset side and the liability side. And in terms of the lending, these are the observations for the strategy making. Thank you.
Thank you, President Liu. Next.
Thank you. I'm from Securities Times, Xie Zhongxiang. So the quality of the asset of PSBC is always maintained at a very premium level among the peers.
So my question is, though, how do you look at the changes of the performance of the asset quality, especially the asset on the retail side and corporate? So the outlook of the trends of the quality of the assets in 2024, what kind of risks in whatever areas should we concern most? Thank you very much.
Asset quality is always our advantages. After the results are published and a lot of care is coming from the markets, I'd like to invite Madame Yao to take the question. Thank you.
Thank you for the question and your care for PSBC. The question actually is comprised of three bullet points. Regarding 2023 asset quality, we believe that the PSBC's asset quality will maintain stable. At the same time, we fully implement the new regulations of the classification of the asset as per regulator. So the asset quality will become consolidated.
The NPL ratio is 0.83% year-on-year, down by 1 BP. NPL generation rate is also flat. The overdue rate is 0.91% year-on-year, down by 4 BP. The special mention rate is on the rise. The main reason for this is that we stringently implement the requirements as per schedule on the new regulations and also the defaults of the customers on other banks. But normal on our bank has been actually adjusted. And also, the special mention classification criteria also have been adjusted for these customers in terms of the cross default. And also, the normal loans with the cross default have been reallocated into special mention classes. So now, the NPL rate plus special mention rate is 1.51%. That is less than half of the industrial level. So the second bullet point is the changes of the quality of the asset of the retail and corporate level.
First of all, the retail loans, the generation of the NPL is up by 2 BP, among which the credit cards, the small credit, and the mortgage loans NPL generation is increasing indeed. But in the retail, the mortgage type of the loans account for 74%. And this part of the loans is expected to be as per 60 days of a due. And that is as per the very stringent standard by the regulator. So for the corporate loans, among which the housing loans and also the local government financing platforms, risk is on the rise. And also due to the many downward pressure and the big amount of corporate customers, some individual of them has been put into the class of the NPL. So for the housing NPL, it's about 2.45%. But still, this figure is a relatively positive number among the peers.
For the LGFV, the repayment with interest is normal without any overdue. But due to the prudent principle, they are all categorized into NPL. As for in 2023, we intensified the measurement on the liquidation and disposal of the NPL for the retail and corporate, and down by 1 BP and 2 BP, respectively. The third bullet point is about the asset quality of 2024. It's determined by two sides. The first one is the economic development trend. The governmental work report also put forward the goal of the growth of the economy at 5%. Following that, the series of the policy will be put into operation. They'll be very positive as a support for the asset enhancement for the bank. The second, our own management strategies and measures.
We'll continue to uphold the risk appetite with prudence and also to increase the quantity and improve the quality at the same time in terms of the scale of the credits. We will maintain relatively good growth, flat as last year. We'll focus on the management over the special mention as well as the market assets. We will be selective in terms of the customer selection. We will correct our positioning for the retail banking so that we can make focus on the five major priorities and also to do a great job for the major five missions. We will take the full process management with the lean management and the dedicated management on the risk control.
Also for the retail aspect, special mention as small loans and mortgage loans, the access and profiling and also the examinations of the customers will become more and more refined. We will enhance the criteria of the access of the customers and centralize the review and approval of the loans in terms of the retail aspect. As for the corporate finance, the focus will be on the properties and the local government finance platform and also the retail and wholesale aspects. The four principles will be implemented, i.e., early detection, early warning, early exposure, and early disposal. Also, at the access level, the catalog will be maintained very stringently. We will intensify this self-control. For the post-loan management, it is the whole process monitoring and alarm mechanism so as to intensify the vertical and all-level watching over this quality of the asset.
And also for the non-performing assets, we will dispose them as soon as possible, increase the contribution to the profit. So these above-mentioned analyses and practices being put into operation, I believe we are confident to maintain high asset quality as always.
Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Miss Yao. Next. I'd like to invite a phone call question. And then we will resume back to the onsite. I'd like to invite Yan Meijie from UBS.
Good morning. Thanks for this opportunity from online. My question is regarding the savings agency rate. As we have been observing that in 2022, PSBC have adjusted the agency rate for savings services and also made new standards for the triggers or passive triggers. And also now, we have seen the annual reports from four big banks. And the average net interest margin has fallen below the new passive trigger level.
We can see changes going on right now. I'd like to know the difference of the current adjustment versus last time. How long have we had to be waiting for the results to come out?
Yes, the savings agency fee is one of the biggest differentiators for PSBC versus other banks and also highly concerned and cared about by a lot of investors. Analysts, I'd like to invite our VP to take the question.
Thank you for the question. As we know that PSBC has a very special operational mode, i.e., the self-running plus agency service. This is the operational mode that we rely on, which is very special, costing a very dramatic and massive network covering the urban areas and rural areas. Right now, we have 40,000 outlets and 660 million customers.
70% of these customers are distributed in the county-level regions. We know that at the county-level regions, agencies will be the main operational mode. The agency has been providing the long-term source of capital as well as the customer base, which is at a very low level in the market. Now, the service to the agriculture businesses, SMEs, and to the residents in the rural and urban areas rely on this operational mode as the basis. It's fair to say that these are the competitiveness provided to the differentiated features of the performance of PSBC. This self-running plus agency is our feature and also advantage. Just like being alluded to by Miss Yan, the pricing of the fees of the agency has been always cared by the investors as large.
So the synergetic common winning principle being implemented by the postal services and banking services, based on which we have explored the complete mechanism or pricing mechanism. In 2016, when we were listing H stock market, we have been actively and passively adjusting the pricing mechanism after 6 years when it comes to 2022, 2 years ago. We, for the first time, turned on the passive trigger. Both sides adjusted the agency fees very proactively at the same time. Also, we are proposing the AUM as the principle and also to reduce the cost for the interest payment. Last year, the agency fees are down by 3 BP comprehensively, as being alluded to by the president. The payment of the interest rate is down by 9 BP for the individual savings.
Also, last year, the NIM in PSBC maintained above 2%, which is unique among the peers. That is attributable to the lowering of the cost of the payout ratio of the interest, also the pricing stability for the agency fees. So I think the last time's adjustment of the fees is very, very good. We have met the expectations. So I can see the interest rate is experiencing a downward pressure since the second half of last year as well as the narrowing of the NIM spectrum. So we started operating on the preparation for adjustment again. I'd like to report to you that we right now have finished studying on different methods as well as the different runs of the simulated measurements. And there are two principles in conclusion.
The first one is that the commercially sustainable principle; we have to observe the observations and ideas from different stakeholders to guarantee fairness, justice of the pricing. The second, we have to insist on the mutual prosperity principle, especially we will fully explore the potential of the network at the local level to dive in the blue sea of agriculture financing and inclusive financing to rejuvenate the rural area and also to unleash the vitality of PSBC by the network advantages. The self-running and agency one plus one is bigger than two. Through the scientific pricing, we will further enhance the optimization of the pricing mechanism so that we can stabilize the payment of the interest. That we can keep our lead, our advantage in NIM. You also asked about the timeline for the implementation.
Of course, we will actually act according to the agency agreement. As of the day for the trigger, we, of course, will make the necessary adjustments and, of course, go through the necessary corporate governance procedure. Of course, we need to take advantage of this agency fee adjustment to improve the internal capital compensation capability and promote the sustainable, healthy development. We are also hopeful that through this adjustment, we can give full play to the advantage of the collaboration between PSBC and the Post Group, our parent company. We need to build these rural finance, microfinance, and wealth management. PSBC, and of course, is focusing on inclusive finance. And of course, we are trying our best to make ourselves a trustworthy good bank. On the one hand, we need to serve the real economy. On the other hand, we also need to maximize the interest for our shareholders.
Thank you. The next question, row 2 on the right. The 2023 Central Financial Work Conference actually focused on the digital finance. We would like to ask about how you're going to, what you're going to do, what's your plan regarding tech empowerment and digital development. Of course, tech empowerment is the consensus of the industry. This is a very important issue for the core competitiveness of the bank. We would like to turn it over to President Liu.
Thank you. Digital finance and incorporating financial institutions into the changes of the time and constructing core competitiveness is a very necessary action. All banks are eager to improve their new productive forces, consolidate their foundation for digital finance and deepen digital transition. As a young state-owned bank, PSBC has always been trying to incorporate innovation into our genes.
Though starting off pretty late, we don't have any legacy so that we can keep ahead of the time. So we made the transition from the small machines to the distributed core system, from the traditional technological architecture to the microservice technological architecture. And of course, also from the physical nodes to cloud-managed, cloud-based management. We actually made the steps very solidly, in particular with regard to the rapid development of AI. We have been making explorations along the way. Every year, we actually earmarked 3% of our operating income and invested into tech fintech. Last year, we focused on strategy, technology, and data empowerment to promote the upgrading of financial service. So strategy, basically, digital transition should be the core part of the transition strategy. In 2023, we expedited the implementation of the 14th Five-Year Plan IT Plan. And we focused on new cores and 10 project groups.
We accelerated the development of the enterprise level mid-platform and also launched the Mobile Banking 9.0 and interbank platform and staff system, etc. Tech empowerment, that is to build a strong foundation for digital finance in 2023. We basically tried to make core technology our own. We promoted the digital ecosystem building. Of course, we actually won the first award from the PBOC's 2022 Tech Development Award with our distributed core system development. Basically, we focused on the new generation core system development. For example, on December 16th, 2023, the new generation credit core system was launched. On January 27th, 2024, the new generation corporate core system was also launched. Now we have our major innovations in personal and corporate core system. We also tried to add upgrades to our customer service product management, business procedure, risk management, and data empowerment.
That is to say, we need to deepen data empowerment. We had the 360 view of the customers. That actually covered the customer analytics and marketing, etc., which supported 49 applications, 147 themes, which supported the rural revitalization risk management. So that we can galvanize and mobilize the data. The strategy, technology, data empowerment can promote innovation. Now, last year, we saw a lot of the technological developments like ChatGPT and Sora. This actually set us thinking for the whole financial industry. We closely followed the state-of-the-art technology and consistently pushed ahead with our exploration. That actually helped us effectively to reduce cost, business empowerment, and risk management. Of course, the PSBC Brain can actually help us do the profiling. Of course, we can also get a lot of information with that platform. RPA can actually replace a lot of human labor.
This has been executed over 2 million times, cutting 280,000 human hours of human labor. Of course, we also have over 5,000 calls for the credit and consumption, a smart call center. Of course, last December, we had the digital family, which was launched. The little PSBC, a bot, robot, which is very lovely, and it has already become a major icon for PSBC. Of course, it's also very young and lively and very smart and becomes a very important service provider. In order to push ahead with our digital priority in 2024, we will continue to focus on digital transition and be guided by the IT 14th Five-Year Plan to provide more technological strength and power to foster technology productive forces first, our R&D capability, because R&D is the key to development. We have been unswervingly sticking to the high-quality independence for high technology.
We have been consistently improving our own R&D system on the basis of completing the personal and corporate core system in 2024. The credit card core system will become operational with a lot of other projects to be launched as well. Second, smart and digital technology will also accelerate. We try to consolidate our foundation to improve our delicacy management and digital management. We're also exploring the in-depth integration of models and data empowerment and try to build the one-stop data analytic environment to support decision-making and profiling so that we can use this to support our services. We need to embed these analytics capabilities into our business procedure to have targeted marketing to release more value from data. And thirdly, we need to expand innovation technology application. We need to promote the upgrading from the awareness and perception.
And of course, we can also accelerate the building of the virtual floors and also digital account managers, etc. So basically, we can take advantage of the big data plus digital person, big data plus RPA into the risk management, wealth management, etc. So now we're all on the digital transition to promote the high-quality development. We need to take advantage of the digital and smart capability to improve customer experience so that we can make this upgrade from tech support to tech driving to tech leadership so that we can have a bright future in tech empowerment. Thank you.
Thank you, President Liu. Next question, row two on the right one. So Liu Lingwen, my question concerns inclusive finance. So over the past few years, inclusive finance has been very, very important. And of course, we could see that inclusive finance and small loans develop very fast.
I'd like to know how you actually realize financial sustainability for inclusive finance and how you manage risk amidst rapid development. So I'm going to take this question. As you may know, our positioning is to focus on supporting rural finance, rural and residential people, residents, and also SMEs. We have always been focusing on this regard, and we have made a lot of explorations and changes in inclusive finance. And now we have our own characteristic development path for inclusive finance.
So last year, we can sum up last year's growth with growth, expansion, quality improvement, and efficiency boost. Basically, in terms of the growth, since the start of the 14th five-year plan, we actually land a total of CNY 3.86 trillion for SMEs with an annual compound growth rate of 22%. Last year, the outstanding balance is CNY 1.46 trillion. Last year alone, grew by CNY 274.8 billion by 23%.
Second, our customer coverage has been widening. In the 14th five-year plan, we basically served 4.63 million SME customers. Now, 2.17 million had a loan from us last year. We had 230,000 more. The outstanding loan per household is CNY 670,000. That is to say, we make our service even more inclusive and grassroots. Third, our quality is improving. The NPL in this regard was 1.5%, down by 1.64 percentage points from the end of 2018. We also had a balance between quantity and pricing. On the one hand, we can meet the demand for SMEs to decrease their operating costs. Through delicacy management, we realized sustainable growth. Last year, our average loan rate is 4.0%. Interest for loans is 4.61%. As mentioned by Mr. Liu, we actually need to focus on the five priorities.
We need to bring the most of the two advantages: coordination and smart digital. Basically, we need to make our inclusive finance even more characteristic. We need to build our own teams, our pioneers in inclusive finance. We can further boost our inclusive finance and growth priority. Now we're promoting three news. The first one is we need to upgrade the system. We make a new system for SME finance. So you can see there is this problem: high cost, high quality, and low return for inclusive finance. This is the crux for this subject. So in order to resolve this, tech empowerment is the necessary path. That's why we have been consistently building our digital marketing system, product system, risk management system, operating model, and service model for inclusive finance.
So we summed this up as 5D Strategy, which is already explained and elaborated into our annual report. We actually gave a lot of explanation to the digital system. Of course, we also connected to taxation and also industry, Internet of Things, etc. We, of course, also had the early warning model, and we upgraded this model. We are one of the first banks that are put on the NDRC platform. Of course, we launched a lot of very good products. Now we are working together with the National Public Information Center to build our lab. Now we have already over 4,000 digital assets foundation. Of course, we also already have profiled over 4,000 customers. Last year, the inclusive MSE loans had nearly 90% online business.
In the meantime, we have also noted that a majority of the MSEs have a strong demand for their own digital transition. To this end, we also have to give full play to our advantages as the Sci-Tech Empowered Big Bank. We innovatively launched the platform, which is prone to the SMEs. That is the integrated platform for the operation of the postal, the savings, and the business lending to the SMEs. So the integrated solutions can be provided digitally to this customer. Secondly, focus on the whole lifecycle service provision as a mechanism to our customers because in the whole process of the growth of the SMEs, they have different differentiated demands and requirements.
On one hand, the PSBC must be built in a very considerate way to handle everything for them from the single loan provider as to the integrated solution provider, integrating the lending and the savings and a comprehensive service provision focused on the different scenarios based on the comprehensive financing and payment to settlement and wealth management and so on and so forth in an integrated manner to serve our customers. So in the last whole year, that is the first year of this official launch of the platform, the customers in the single year grown by 1.5%. On the other hand, we must synergetically give a play to the adjustments of the postal services and the banks or the banking businesses. This is a very special feature and adjustment of our resources.
We as well focus on the industrial chain, supply chain to integrate our services or financial services for the chain perspective. These are the advantages based on which we can transform our services. A third point is that we must give a play to the new track of the new quality productive forces. In the whole market, we have done some clarification of the catalog of the Sci-Tech companies, which is more than 600,000: Sci-Tech and Industrial Parks. Just as being noted by President Liu that the parks and also the industrial chain must be the major two generators to build the different line of the products in need of those customers at the different stages with the different demands, which include the capital financing, capital operation, payment, settlements, wealth management, and smart consultation.
These are what we call the U-Prosper service systems for the SciTech businesses to turn to. The SciTech companies, they have very light assets as their feature. To this feature, we built the look into the future risk control and the management model. Not only looking at the current three statements, these are the demonstration and performance and transformation trends of the current situation. But of course, we have to look at the potential and perspectives into the future for the SMEs. Last year, the number of the SciTech companies that we have observed is 69.4 thousand, grown by 28%. The market coverage is about 10%. And the loan balance for the SciTech companies' customers is CNY 326.8 billion by 38%. The growth perspective for servicing this SciTech and dedicated and innovative companies in terms of the lending actually is very promising in the space.
As for the question that you have raised and commonly concerned by a lot of investors from the market about the commercial sustainability of the inclusive finance, first of all, we have to focus on the precise control of the risk. In recent years, we continuously enhance our ability to precisely control and manage the risks, especially the risks from the pre-lending, inter-lending, and post-lending. The whole process will be managed in a closed loop. We will build up the profiling of the customers. Then the risks and the bugs will be alarmed automatically. They would also lead to the optimization of the risk control solutions for the access. The centralized review and approval of the lending will be the basis. As experts, they will automatically alarm and also streamline.
And also with the advantages of the centralized auditing, this will efficiently enhance the efficacy of the management. And also the post-line centralized management is another merit. Like some analogies or some risks will be centrally detected and disposed. And then the manager's capacity can be improved. When the substantive risk comes into being for those customers, then the solutions will be maintained based on one customer, one solution mechanism to detect the risk and to resolve the task. Last year, the warning actually has been initiated about to those 90% of the default customers. And the reservation or disposal rate is about 50%. So we are the pioneer and practitioner of inclusive finance for many years. It has become our outstanding feature of our operation.
Guided by the regulator, very prominently, we actively implement the dedicated programs of the inclusive finance covering all kinds of households and businesses to promote and focus on the service provision in terms of the inclusive finance. We will be open to more questions and also suggestions. The inclusive finance will be embedded into our DNA and into our bloodline, become the differentiated priority for the SMEs.
Then the opportunity of the raising question will be given back to the phone call customers and investors. I'd like to invite Jun Xu from Morgan Stanley to raise the question.
Thank you for the opportunity. The question is regarding the retail credits. We noticed that last year, the housing mortgage has developed very well. But the LPR, as well as the existing mortgage rate adjustment, is downward.
What is the solutions and outlook for 2024 housing loans? Now, the consumption is fluctuating. We know that the consumption loan, due to different elements and reasons, performs very differently. The first one is that the tourism and the cultural activities are on the rise. The trading of the consumption goods policies are put into being. And likewise, other banks, due to the downward pressure of the LPR. So against this background, what are the opportunities for the 2024 consumption credit loans? And what are the countermeasures to this situation? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Xu. I'd like to invite Mr. Liang to take a question.
Thank you for your acknowledgment. Yes, last year, the mortgage is about CNY 76.228 billion. Like you have mentioned, the LPR and also the existing mortgage rate adjustment unleashed some pressure on us.
But that is very positive for the residential loans cost reduction. So the prepayment has some offset performance in this regard in 2023. The reason why we maintained this good momentum is that, first of all, the business has been optimized by our policies. And second, capacity building. Of course, that is attributable to the efforts from across the whole bank. Talking about the cost, talking about the market, we know that the housing market is actually sluggish. So we see the opportunity from the second-hand market. So the second-hand market last year, the lending has been released by 50+% . And second, that will make up for these loopholes, especially for those cities with very high performance conditions.
The third one is that we give a play to our resources and money, especially at the low-tier level markets, at the county level, especially those rural and urban residents for employment and education, their kids, and getting married. These are the rigid demands for housing in this low-level market. Then we transform and develop our business in these areas and in these growth points. On the whole, the lending to these areas is more than 40% among the whole. In the future, we have to intensify our control on the risks and the management. So looking to the 2024, objectively, to begin, the housing market is still in the period of adjustment. But we still believe that the relevant effects of the relevant policies will transmit the consequence steadily.
So we have to maintain these advantages and maintain the balance between the quantity and the price. On one hand, we will invest in what has been carried out in 2023. Second, we will continue to optimize the deployment in the different regions to continue to make efforts on those cities with the high rigid amounts. But for the mortgage loans, we have to mention the risk as well, especially right now, the real estate market is in fluctuation. According to our practices, we have to seize the 5th of January, the January people, the January housing, the January price, and the January demands. And in that regard, we can control the risk. So 95% of the mortgage rates are for the first house.
Looking into the 2024 consumption trends and opportunities of the loans for the consumption, yes, we can see the policies of encouraging consumption put into being. Trade-in has become a buzzword. Also, we can see the consumption market is recovering by the policies that are being implemented. There are some features. The first one is that the holiday-based tourism and consumption recovered. The cultural-based consumption has been recovered dramatically, and from the performance of the Spring Festival, which is very distinctive. The second feature is that the live streaming and the network-based transaction payments were also recovered. In rural areas, you can take a look at the data. The rural areas' consumption recovered faster than that of the urban area.
If you look at the villages and rural areas, a lot of consumptions are transformed to the optimization and the preference of the quality of the products, especially in some eastern areas. So the county-level consumption is equivalent to that of the city level. So trade-in, I mean, the vehicles trade-in, the consumption loans is getting in line with this trend, actually, basically satisfy the consumption demands from the rural areas, especially at the county level. And the adjustments of the resources are very abundant in this area. We have to seize this opportunity of the trade-in trend in terms of the cost. We join hands with the OEMs, the major producers, to launch the portfolio of the lines of the products, which are preferred mainly by the market from the rural areas and in all sections. 3C, consumption goods, trade-in.
We will also join hands with the e-business and also the platforms to launch the consumption credits, especially the down payment credit. For the capacity building, I think it's very important, especially through the process optimization and the classification of the operation. We actually will provide active lending. This year means that the FAST credit extension can be finished within just one day. For the consumption on the whole, the awakening up of the consumption will pose the opportunities not only for the credits. This year, we will deploy the systems of the activities across the whole country. At the payment side and at the collection side, we can see the positive trends.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Liang. Next. Thank you.
Thank you for the opportunity. I'm Ma Tingheng from Guosheng Securities. My question is regarding intermediary business.
Last year, the intermediary growth maintained very positive. In 2023, like the industry, we are under certain pressure. Now, the expectation for the bancassurance fees will be lowered. Probably, the impact will be generated for the 2024 intermediary businesses. So how do you look at the intermediary business of this whole year for PSBC and how to cope with this situation? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ma. I'd like to invite VP Xu.
Thank you for this question. As you mentioned just now, fee-based business has always been a shortcoming of PSBC. Our management is aware of that issue. Now, with the NIM narrowing consistently, middle business is becoming increasingly important in our portfolio. We actually have made a lot of efforts in response. I still remember in 2022, the management put forward this quantum leap strategy for middle-income business.
For the past four years, we maintain our annual growth at about 20%. It is noteworthy that in 2023, in spite of the very tough market conditions, we still pulled off this net income of CNY 28.252 billion. Though it looked like there is a small decline on the surface, actually, if we exclude this one-off factor from wealth management last May. So we still maintain the double-digit growth. It's really hard to come by to really maintain double-digit growth in this very tough environment. Our rapid growth in intermediary business over the past few years is attributable to three aspects. The first one is wealth management. Wealth management contributes to 20% to our intermediary business. And last year, credit card has been very robust. Over the past few years, we have been actually going down to county level. And credit card income topped the industry.
In terms of active customers' installment payment over draft balance, we actually are higher than most peers. Then corporate finance also realized some quantum leap development. As mentioned by President Liu, we have been putting a lot of work into the OnePlus and service system. In particular, we have been highlighting this integrated commercial and investment banking. Corporate business realized 60% mid-income growth. Trading banking, investment banking witnessed 89% and 43% growth, respectively. Now, looking out into 2024, of course, the fee rate cuts to insurance and banking. Of course, this will have an impact on commercial banks. As you know, PSBC actually has a market share of 25% in agency insurance. Of course, agency insurance is also about a quarter of our intermediary business income. So the impact on us is pretty significant. That's why we put in a lot of preparations.
Basically, we prepared for this. We started making preparations ahead. And then we focused on 10 products to realize healthy development of our fee-based business. That covers credit card, agency insurance, agency mutual fund sales, wealth management, e-payment, syndicated loans, wealth consultancy, zero coupons, custody, trade financing, and supply chain. And zero coupons actually were number one in the industry. And of course, we will put in more work. And of course, we'll also try to focus on this strategy. First, with retail, we will always focus on AUM. In particular, we need to tap into the value of 660 million customers. Through providing suitable products and quality services, we can attract more customers' money with us. And of course, we also need to tap into the existing resources. At the end of last year, our annual AUM hit CNY 15.23 trillion.
Though it might not be that diverse, 82% is savings deposit. In the future, we need to diversify with the interest rate cuts. We still have a lot of space. There's a lot of room in the future. And of course, wealth management, mutual fund sales is a great opportunity. We need to seize the opportunity. And of course, insurance agency insurance is our traditional play. We had 30% market share. In the future, we will continue to increase the penetration rate here. I can also tell you that now, 45 million customers bought insurance policies with us. So compared to this 660 million, it's less than one-third. This will be a major growth point. And in the future, we will continue to consolidate this life insurance so that we can have better growth.
And of course, we also need to take advantage of these large rounds of device replacement and consumer goods trade-ins. And of course, we also need to mobilize the credit card, e-payment, personal settlement services, etc. We need to be customer-centric. We need to improve the loyalty of the customers so that they can deposit more money and put more money resources in us. And with regard to the corporate banking, and of course, we need to increase the number of host bank customers. Actually, we had a 91.6% increase, nearly doubled. So basically, with rapid growth, we will have more returns, more yields, basically settlement host bank. So companies will open their accounts with us. So in the future, we will highlight this integrated model, commercial banking plus investment banking plus investment.
Of course, we will also focus on supply chain financing, corporate settlement, syndicated loans, bonds undertaking, and wealth equity investment, etc., so that we can have this whole package of financial services to our customers. In terms of the cash money, basically, last February, our Together We Thrive platform came online. Just in a year's time, we already had over 2,400 registered customers with a total of CNY 2 trillion in trading and over CNY 90 billion for the cargo business. Then we have just launched the mobile bank application, which is very strong. We just want to make it the Tmall in the banking industry. Now, there are seven floors and two zones. It serves as a port website. There's also the transaction for peers for other banks.
So as a next step, we will continue to bring the most out of Together We Thrive platform to highlight tech empowerment. We will basically improve our in-depth cooperation with other banks, insurers, securities houses, funds, custodians, etc., to create more value. And with our improved capability, we're confident to deal with that challenge. We are confident about realizing sustainable and long-term development for our fee-based business.
So next question, please. Row one on the right. Thank you, People's Daily. So number one, central government document continue to focus on rural revitalization. We know PSBC actually has been working in this area. So can you please tell us what you have done, your developments in this regard in 2023, and also share with us your plan for 2024? We also noted that small loan business maintained a very rapid growth.
I'd like to ask how you manage your risk while maintaining very rapid growth here. We will also like to turn it over to President Liu for this question. Thank you.
Thank you for the question. Agricultural lending, basically, this is our main business the central government designated us to focus on. For all these years, we have always been focusing on our responsibility to explore this market, this business. 2023, rural finance has become one of the five priorities for us. Since this is the most important business for us, and this is the first priority for us, we put in more work into this segment. Last year, on the basis of zero staff increase, we allocated 1,500 staff to this business line because we want to make our rural finance services even more accessible.
We know the rural finance market requires people to go to the ground, to actually go to the doorstep, and to ask people to open accounts and also to actually help them and grow our business. And of course, we also take advantage of this node-based management system to foster growth in this business. We have made some progress here. So in terms of the data, now the rural finance indicators... So by the end of 2023, the balance of agricultural loans was over CNY 2 trillion. The increase was CNY 346 billion, a record high. It's by 19%, nearly 20%. The percentage of agricultural or rural loans was 25% of the total loan book. That is to say, the rural finance balance is a quarter of our overall outstanding loans. We are among the lead in terms of the big banks.
Of course, these personal small loans, the balance is CNY 1.39 trillion. Last year, it grew by CNY 257 billion, over 20% growth for four years in a row. So that is the growth in quantity. And in terms of pricing, whether it be rural lending or small lending, the total pricing was also very satisfactory. Though it declined somewhat from the start of the year, you can see the magnitude of the decline is really flat with other major banks. So that means we still maintain a very robust advantage in pricing. And in terms of the asset quality, you can see the NPL with rural finance is 0.83%, and that actually is already down by nine basis points from the start of the year. So you can see the asset quality is also on a positive trend.
So basically, you can see this is the overall story for rural finance in 2023. And as for 2024, we also have these three thoughts for business here in this year. First, we still need to focus on our positioning. And of course, we need to construct this full lifecycle management system. We need to put in more work and also enhance the system. The first one, we need to better execute our advantage in active lending and make our online capability even stronger and better. Just now, we talked about active lending. And active lending has already made a lot of achievements. For 15 months, the balance is CNY 150 billion. You can see we have a very big customer base. So through a screening, etc., we have 120 million customers. So through analysis on a lot of models, we believe that they have the need for loans.
And of course, they are also qualified and they're also solvent. So basically, we have tried to reach these customers. So accessibility for customers is a challenge. That is to say, after I identified their credit line, how can I help them know that they have this line? How can they get the loans just within three minutes? We made a lot of attempts. For example, through ATP, through texting or through call center by robots. Now, the robot call center basically is a very good one, and that can ensure very good access, accessibility. So through different attempts, we have made different attempts just to try to reach them, and now we're more competent to reach them. So the active lending balance is increasing very rapidly. Frankly, this is just the progress or the achievement of a 50-person strong team back office.
So based on this team, we did this job. And also we have the robots helping us to make the call to reach this customer. So on the whole, this kind of pattern is a very effective mode. And based on this model, we can consolidate the base of the customers, especially the online operational ability can be consolidated. And with that, we can generate new growth points. And to some instance, it can dramatically increase our service ability to these agricultural customers. That is the first point: to consolidate the traditional mode. Advantages. And also in the past many years, through the summarization of these very good points, we think the extensive development of the credit covered villages is very necessary, especially we can organize the different officials, different posts like the leader from the villages and the different committees.
They can generate their momentum and influence over those farmers and also the farm owners and to actually provide the service and consultation to them. This is a kind of a grid-based management pattern. In the past years of the practices and trials, be it the risk control and management and penetration of the market in these areas, we can see very good results. Right now, we are progressively pushing forward the reforms in our operational pattern. The post alone, we centralize the collection of the payment, and this kind of reform dramatically releases the capacity of the managers of the customers because in the past, a single manager will get in touch with hundreds of the households, but that actually is beyond their ability. So now, previously, they have to knock the door and visit these villages door by door, and that takes a lot of time.
The cost of this travel would be very tremendous, and the effectiveness and efficiency is rather low. Now, the collection of the payment and also the prevention of the default could be done very effectively through this centralized effort. The manager can only focus on the consultation and also the centralized management of this data. This kind of mode will be promoted further. In terms of the pattern of the risk control, these are all done very well. From the traditional aspect, these technologies can be taken as our advantages to transform them. The third aspect that we have done right now is to effectively give a play to the synergies from the postal services and the banking sectors. We know that postal services are from our groups. It's very extensively distributed, especially in the rural areas.
Also, the expansion and the penetration of these services are very, very deep and very, very spacious. So now, like the postal services, they are featuring with the five categories of the customers. And these are the synergetic pattern of the service provision from postal sectors, like the flow of the capital, flow of the logistics and information, and all kinds of flows can pull together. Plus, the major entities of the villages and the corporates and also the stores at the rural areas, in that we can collect the data from the customers. And at the same time, also we can launch the services as consulted to these customers in need. And last year, we have launched a policy which is called the easy lending to the farmers or the easy financing product to the rural areas.
This kind of product is integrated and embedded with the postal services from our group. Through the verification of the data from the back office, this kind of pattern last year had finished about CNY 60 billion of the revenue increase. Also this year, we will have even more ambitious targets. That is the showcase of the synergies and orchestration of the postal services or the ecosystem of this service from the postal all the way to the banking sector. Also our access can be extensively distributed in this rural and villages area. That is very unique and identical for PSBC because no other PS country is there. The group value this very much.
In Hangzhou last year, we've done an exchange and also the consultation and mobilization conference together with the postal services to provide this service one-on-one to the villages and also the customers at the villages. This is our identical and unique advantages. We have to maximize the effectiveness of these advantages. So through these three especially mentioned and above-mentioned measures, we can maximize the acquisition ability of the customers, risk control ability, and also team building. That is what we've been doing in the past and forward-looking into 2024. About the management, in the past several years for the patchy loans operation, we actually explored and summarized some lessons and experiences. Risk control also has gained some results. In that regard, we have to develop the comprehensive and holistic risk control and management system or mode. It's very necessary.
First of all, we must look at the reshaping model of the risk control. In the past, this model of the risk control, especially when it comes to the review and approval, we only looked at the ability of the individual managers. In the past, if the managers are very well or performed very well, then the default rate is very low. Some of the managers, probably due to the constraint of their ability or the default of their morality, they've done very poorly or even lower than the average. They just quit the job and leave a messy situation to us. What can we do about it? In the past, the ability of the managers, of course, is very important. At the same time, we also have to develop something else, more scientific back office auditing risk control system must be established.
We can assume that the managers are all bad or evil-willed, then things would not be accomplished at all. So right now, we are looking at how to accomplish a very good back office auditing system so as to prevent the default and prevent the fraud. And right now, we are reshaping this ability. Once more, the approval has to be centralized very intensively. And right now, we are pushing forward the centralization of these matters in the holistic reform process. That is about reshaping the ability of managing the credit-related risks based on this. We will further focus on the empowerment by the data. On one hand, we have massive data in the repositories like the transaction data and the postal logistic data.
At the same time, we also have very massive data from outside, like the data from the marketing, regulation, and judicial sectors, and so on and so forth. So we have to mobilize all of this data altogether to look at the risk potential of the customers. And also last, we have to further build up the ability of the teams. The team of the management is very important, especially currently. We still need to build the premium quality manager in the team so that they would be performing very correctly and effectively and efficiently. At the same time, we also have to intensify the efforts on the monitoring over the behaviors of these managers. So one more thing, another focus is to develop some monitoring and alarm mechanism. It means that the post-loan or post-lending risk monitoring has to be done by the profiling and the data launching.
Once the risks will be triggered, then the measures will be automatically initiated. Before landing, inter-landing, and after landing, these things need to be done. This effort has to be mobilized. I believe with that accomplished, our risk control ability will be further enhanced. Right now, for the patchy loans, the quality of the asset is very good and controllable. But with this effort putting down, I believe the quality of the asset in this regard will be further intensified and improved and to support the fast development and accelerate our overall operation. We would never allow the situation to happen like we move very fast, but loopholes are also popping up very fast. We have to guarantee the quality and at the same time guarantee the speed.
And also to orchestrate these two elements together on both sides to develop the better performing risk control pattern, especially against the current situation and background in China. And our risk control pattern must be conducive to the ability of market development based on the current China's market situation.
Thank you very much, Ms. Liu. And before this result conference, we received some questions from IR email. And our staff also have summarized this question together before the meeting is convened. And the questions and answers are also very special, light, and very professional. And some of them are focusing on the asset quality that has been taken by Madame Yao. We are going to be more prudent and intelligent in terms of the classification of the risk. And the second is about the asset management. And Mr.
Liu, President Liu, have taken this question, especially emphasizing the five differentiated growth poles and also the road ahead of us. The third major concern from this question is on the team building. President Liu, in the lectures and also the annual report, there is a special dedicated chapter depicting this issue. The fourth concern is about the agency fees. Madame Xu has taken that question as well. Also, last year, the fluctuations from the markets caused the challenges to the management in the banking sector. So in 2023, what would be the concern for the management of the asset? After the RBR is lowered, is there any possibility to improve the asset from the deposit level? Also, is there any plan for the management of the wealth? So with that, I'd like to invite Mr. Liang to take the question about the wealth management.
Thank you very much. For the question from the online, 2023 is the first year of the three action plan for the wealth management of PSBC. Yes, indeed, the fluctuation of the capital market has caused some challenges to the wealth management business. First of all, the original purpose is to create values to our customers, to service the customers, at the same time as how to intensify the capacity and internal abilities. So first of all, the team building is very important. And on the whole year, we organize 67 training workshops for the wealth managers from these countries. Enhance their ability to operate and manage the assets. Also, The contest is very specialized and also very professional. And the whole year, 30+ people have been granted with awards. And also second, we have to empower the operation for the headquarters.
In the whole country, the standard of the service and also the areas is very low and standards very high. Now, there are more than 100-plus wealth centers to serve in the different areas and scenarios to our customers, the premium customers. This performance has been improved. We dedicate the special person for servicing these special and individual customers. Through the very professional escorting and accompany, the trust from the customer can be maintained and retained. In terms of servicing our customers, first of all, we deepen the promotion in the outlets. We initiate a lot of activities and promotional events. The participants are more than 3 million or 30 million. More than 1 billion person-times have been participating into these knowledge promotion activities. The promotion for the wealth management is also promoted.
In light of the changes to customers' risk appetite, we focus on stabilization. Our closed-loop wealth management return was 96%. So through efforts, 2023, personal AUM hit CNY 15.23 trillion up by 9.7%. Number of VIP customers increased by 8.72%, VVIP up by 16.76%. Fee-based income maintained double-digit growth for four straight years. We also won industry awards like the Annual Banking Wealth Management Award from Shanghai Securities Papers and also Global Finance Retail Bank Award. So you asked if there will be some improvements to residential wealth management investment with the cuts to deposit rates. So yes, we saw such improvement from Q1 data. So now let me talk about 2024, what we are going to do in this year. 2024 marks the second year of our three-year wealth management. So this year we'll be focusing on improvement.
We will continue to be guided by AUM to create value for customers. We will focus on product, service, team, operation, and education to improve our services. You can see the penetration rate for wealth management is still not high enough. If we can build a very good system, naturally, the business will come to us. I also like to elaborate on this one. First, product capability. Product actually is the lifeline for wealth management. On the one hand, we will continue to try to realize full coverage of the products. And of course, we will focus on R&D to select the best products so that our customers can have the best products for them. On the other hand, given the current situation, we, of course, will focus on stabilization and actually place some high-yield products as well. Secondly, we will improve delicacy management for customers.
So here I'd like to make two points here. First, for the youths and also for the agency business, we will launch the exclusive wealth management solutions. And just last month, we launched the Wealth Management Night Market, which is very successful. And we, of course, welcome you to check on it online on your mobile phone. And of course, our expertise last year, we had a lot of improvements. And this year, we will continue to try to build these capability lists to see what we lack and what we are good at so that we can have overall improvements to our capability and productive forces. And fourthly, we will further flesh out our scenarios for marketing and improve and optimize our marketing management. And fifthly, we, of course, will try to connect with the marketing and improve the efficiency. Investment education is also very important.
We need to teach them and educate them on the need for wealth management. This is our opportunity as well as responsibility. So that's why last year we organized a lot of activities offline. We had the Wealth Management Forum. And of course, we also have these intergenerational wealth management activities. And of course, we also have a lot of online fora as well. It is our belief that through all these efforts, 2024 will see some major growths in wealth management. Thank you.
Thank you. How time flies. Now, this will be the final question. Thank you. Wen Ming with the Economic Observer have a question regarding green finance.
Green finance actually is a very important direction for optimizing resource allocation and aiding social and economic development.
So I'd like to ask about your plan, what you did in 2023, and what your objectives are in terms of climate transition, low-carbon transition. We also released our ESG together with our annual report.
So let me address this question. So now, in this economic transition, green actually will be penetrating the whole process. And in the light of our own resources and our advantages at PSBC, we are trying to build the first-class green inclusive finance bank. First, in terms of philosophy, referring to the familiar Pos t, actually, the iconic color is green. PSBC is born out of the Post Group. So that's why we have the slogan, "Green makes life more beautiful." So that's why from corporate governance, policy, resource allocation, product innovation, risk management, tech empowerment, green operations, etc., we made very comprehensive arrangements just to deepen the building of a green bank.
Of course, we're also benchmarking with international standards and international initiatives. We actively supported the UN 2030 SDGs and Paris Agreement. We also signed the UN Sustainable Blue Economy Finance Initiative. We became the first major Chinese bank that has signed this initiative. Second, in terms of action, we're considering incorporating green finance with our rural finance, inclusive finance, etc. That's why we will try to imbue green into our future businesses. We are also doing carbon auditing for over 4,000 corporate customers. We're also connecting with our service ends through bonds and wealth management so that we can have an integrated service for our customers. In terms of innovation, we launched the first carbon reduction support tool and also Sustainable Development Plus digital currency, RMB currency.
Of course, we also put the label on carbon neutralization, rural revitalization, and the revitalization of revolutionary bases. This instrument came out. Of course, we also issued the first transition loan. Thirdly, with regard to risk management, we incorporated environmental and climate risk into the overall comprehensive risk management system and the credit management system. For two straight years, we conducted these climate-focused sensitivity stress tests. The test result was very positive. In terms of the efficiency, for the whole year, the green loan balance is CNY 637.9 billion by 28.5% year-on-year, higher than other loan growth by 15.9 percentage points. We lent CNY 47.4 billion in carbon reduction loans to 452 projects. This actually means the CO2 emission reduction of 10.12 million tons. The NPL for green loan is just 0.08%, 0.4 percentage points lower than the average industry NPL ratio.
We actually are awarded by the China Banking Association. Actually, we were rated as an A-level bank by MSCI ESG. As a next step, we will deepen our green finance work and focus on this area continuously. First, we will focus on customer base to come up with more products that really fit the needs of rural finance and MSEs. And of course, we also need to innovate our green financial services and actually have a very good integration of our green finance, tech finance, and transition finance. And of course, we also need to focus on empowerment. We will do more carbon auditing for our SMEs. And of course, we have already launched the carbon account on your personal account on the mobile phone, on the mobile application. And on that basis, we will also try to enhance our environment and ESG management.
Of course, we will continue to well manage our information disclosure. Dear friends, we come to the end of the announcement. Now you have raised a lot of very good questions worth our further study and research. We have deeply felt your concern and expectation for PSBC. Along the way, together with our growth, we have closely listened to your voice from the capital market and the whole society. Thank you again for your care and support for PSBC. That'll do it for this results announcement. Thank you.