Distinguished investors, analysts, dear media friends, and the old and new friends who care about PSBC, good morning. I'm PSBC's vice president and secretary to the board, Du Chunye. I'm going to preside this morning's interim result conference. First of all, many thanks to all of the friends out of very busy schedule of the interim result season to attend today's meeting. This meeting will continue adopt the on-site broadcast, plus online streaming, plus satellite broadcast, so that we can provide more thorough information for communication with the old and new friends. Without further ado, let's introduce the leaders from PSBC. President Mr. Liu Jianjun, Vice President Ms. Yao Hong, Vice President Mr. Xu Xueming, Managing Director of Retail Banking Mr. Liang Shidong.
At the same time, Director Han Wenbo and the heads of the department of the headquarters of the PSBC will attend the meeting offline on the venue, and the representatives and other heads of the department will also understand the cares from the capital market on the PSBC from this result conference. The financial data from this result conference, unless otherwise stated, are adopting the IFRS principle and we are using simultaneous interpretation as well. First of all, we'll have the result report from Mr. Liu Jianjun, followed by Q&A. So the floor is yours, Mr. Liu. Distinguished investors, analysts, media friends, good morning.
I'd like to thank for your care and support for a long time to PSBC, and through today's result conference, I hope that we can share with you the operational status of the first year, first half of this year, and the insights and ideas for the future development. Since beginning of this year, the PSBC and the banking sectors actually is faced with a very complex environmental situation, especially external ones. The common feeling is that the pressure of the operation this year is even bigger versus the years before. Faced with these challenges, we can see that we maintained the position of the strategies and maintained the steady and healthy development, and we have delivered a very resilient performance result with the staying power.
First of all, in terms of the operation performance, we maintained it in a very well manner, and our differentiating ability is also upgraded. In the first half of this year, the net profit attributable to the shareholders stood at CNY 49.564 billion, up by 5.20% year-on-year. Operating revenues stood at CNY 177.157 billion, year-on-year grew by 2.03%, among which net interest income year-on-year grew by 2.3%, not only maintaining the positive growth and the acceleration rate compared to Q1, up by 1.34 percentage points. What is worth noticing is that from the report result, the fees and commissions income growth rate is only 1.81%.
That is, mainly due to the one-off factors of the transformation of the net value-based wealth management products, which lead to the higher floor rate of the same period of last year. Excluding these one-off factors, the intermediary business income growth rate is 24.17%, which reflects the growth ability of the income of the intermediary businesses. That the business is steadily scaling up. The total assets is more than CNY 15 trillion, up by 7.51% over the end of last year. To continually provide the service to the real economy, the total customers loans reached CNY 7.82 trillion, up by 8.49% of the end of last year. We try our best to not only serve the real economy and also optimize the credit structures of the PSBC.
The personal small loans and the small business loans incremental amounts have reached record highs and maintained a continuous growth. In terms of the liability, we maintain high quality development. The total liabilities is more than CNY 14 trillion, up by 7.48% from the end of last year. The total loans to the customers is 13.3 trillion yuan, up by 4.62% from the end of last year. And what is worth noticing is that the debt interest payment rate is 1.57%, down by 8 basis points year-over-year, maintaining the continuous leading position in the sector, which is actually attributable to the refined management to the asset and the liability sides.
When the pressure in the sector is very strenuous in the first half of this year, the NIM of the bank still maintained 2.08%, which is a leading position. The Q on Q, down by 1 BP. The spectrum is way lower versus the interbank sectors. We actually have maintained a very slight drop at a very high floor. When the total asset is increasing, the quality of the asset is continuously improved. NPR ratio is only 0.81% compared to the end of last year, down by 0.03 percentage points. We continue the prudent and forward-looking provisional principles. The provision coverage ratio is 381.28%, maintain the leading position in the sector. The solvency against the risk is very sufficient and the social recognition is enhancing.
The Bankers Magazine 2023 top 100, 1,000 global bank ranking. We are ranked twelfth in terms of the Tier 1 CAR, which is the other record high. The three international rating agencies have given the credit rating results to China, on its PSBC as the excellent commercial bank. Secondly, the special strengths of the PSBC have become more and more strength, strenuous and prominent. In the first half of this year, we injected the flexibility to the economy. The loan-to-deposit ratio is up by 2.1 percentage points to 58.81% from the end of last year, especially the strengths in the inclusive finance, green finance, and agriculture-related business.
In terms of the agriculture-related finance, we refined our highlights on the credit card systems in the rural areas, especially transformation for digitalizations, narrow-based, and integration of the sectors, so that the system of the agricultural finance services is enhancing. The agribusiness loans is more than CNY 2 trillion, up by CNY 230 billion from the end of last year, another record high in terms of the incremental amounts. The number of the credit card villages is more than 380,000, and 10 million households have been registered. The active credit loans balance of the agribusiness is almost 272 billion CNY.
In this single year, the net growth is CNY 50 billion, and the personal small loans balance is CNY 1.32 trillion, up by CNY 186.7 billion from the end of last year. The online share number of the online extended small loans is more than 95%. We refined our target on the inclusive finance. The number of the inclusive finance, the micro loans, is more than CNY 1.35 trillion, up by CNY 170 billion from the end of last year. The total loans to the customers ratio is 70%.
We especially provide these services to the innovative and specialized companies, and relying on You Prosper SciTech Finance brand to specialize the service on these, innovative and specialized enterprises, where the balance of the loans is more than CNY 300 billion, up by 40% year-on-year, and the customers in this sector is 61.4 thousand, up by 30% year-on-year. In terms of the green finance, we continue exploration on the sustainable finance, green finance, climate-related, finance. The balance of the green loans reach CNY 570 billion, up by 14.73% from the end of last year. We signed Sustainable Blue Economy Finance Initiative, the United Nations, and we are the first state-owned bank in China to sign this initiative.
We launched the first, the TCFD report, and we try best to develop ourselves as the world-class green, inclusive, climate-friendly, and ecological-friendly bank. Thirdly, we initiate the overall strength to serve the customers, enhancing the quality and efficiency of the services. The customers, wherever we are, are the parents of the commercial banks, and we are deepening the transformation of the service patterns for the retail banking, corporate banking, and capital and asset management banking. First of all, we create the values to the customers in terms of the wealth management banking. In amount of 656 million individual customers, number of the VIP customers with AUM of 100,000 CNY and above exceeded to 50.5 million, an increase of 6.67%.
Personal accounts customers AUM reached CNY 14.52 trillion, an increase of 4.56% over the end of last year. Secondly, the corporate finance one plus end system is also prominent. We're promoting the very specialized and very competitive, and featuring risk control, the principal bank pattern of the services. The principal bank's customers is shares of it is more than is almost 50%, and we integrate the finance services, integrating settlements, financing, non-finance, value creation, and we accompany the growth of the customers. And FPA of the corporate customers is 4.21 trillion yuan, up by 14% from the end of last year. And corporate customers is more than 1.5 million, up by 170,000 in the single year.
Thirdly, the interbank eco-circle of the capital and asset management is becoming more and more influential. Together We Thrive interbank ecosystem platform. Since its inception in February of this year, the influence and the recognition of the market on this brand is enhancing, and, the visibility of, the cooperation from the customers is enhancing as well. The number of the, institutions registered in this, platform is more than 2,100, and so we have initiated full coverage of the businesses of the customers, and the cumulative transactions is more than CNY 1 trillion. Fourthly, we empower our businesses by sci-tech. Digitalization is the enabler. The fintech is the determinant of the success for the customer services. We upgrade their mobile businesses so that it can become the best platform for the interaction between the businesses and the customers.
Mobile banking customers number is 350 million. MAU is more than 5.45 thousand, up by 10% from the end of last year. We deepen the application of smart risk control tools, and building the active credit lending models for the retail banking. We provide the premium experience in terms of the instant loan approval to the customers, and the accounts in the active credit list is more than 120 million, and the total balance of the loans is more than CNY 100 billion, and we provide a PSBC credit card, and the 20.8 million are bundled, up by 26%. The cumulative number of the cards linked to the application is 23.8 million, up by 32% from the last year internal management.
So we intensify the support from the SciTech. In the first half of this year, we launched 197 intelligentization and informationization projects, including IoT systems, overall risk management system, remote service centers, and the retail credit can be audited automatically, and we have streamlined half of the workload for the auditors of the subsidiaries, and quality and efficiency of the business is enhanced. Since the beginning of this year, we continue the recovery of the economy, and we can see the positive trends of the overall situation, but the challenge is still very strenuous, and the economic recovery is experiencing the weight pattern fluctuations.
So as a procyclical sector, commercial banks has faced a lot of challenges, and we are thinking, does it mean that the development trend of the commercial trend or the commercial banks has to flow with the tide of the times? Against the different market environments, why the different banks have the different results? We resolutely believe that an excellent commercial bank has to be able to countercyclical, so as to transcend the cycles and break the dilemma. So to this end, we're determining to build PSBC as the excellent commercial bank, and aggressively nurture our ability of countercyclical momentum, and we will put emphasis on several points as follows. First of all, we will insist in our position of retail banking, and we will also put the anchor voice on this part.
Excellent enterprises must have very clear strategies and long-term development plans. So, to withstand the long and storms of those waves, we have to be poised and unchanged and, with relentless efforts to make a long journey steady and long-term. The PSBC has to target itself as the big retail bank and to become bigger, stronger, and better, and the blueprint has to be insisted on to the end. We believe that against the transformation situation with the fluctuations, the risk existing complexities, the changes of the balance sheet of the government, enterprises, and residents, the capital consumption of the retail banking and finance is relatively small, and promising future is very broad. Also, the revenues of the customers is stable, and the conditions for innovation is very sufficient, and also the risk is diverse.
That is the determination to countercyclical environment. PSBC has to put its emphasis on its DNA of the retail banking and its strengths of the element, so as to specialize the idiosyncratic strengths and contributions by the values, so that we can strike the balance of the different elements in terms of the corporate finance and capital and asset management, and develop the one system, two wings, systematic and convergent development pattern with the modernized situation.
Second, we should also unswervingly try to build five differentiated growth poles and cultivate the momentum for development. The year's beginning results announcement, we proposed that we will actually surround three areas, agriculture areas, finance, microcredit, active lending, wealth management. Of course, this is actually demanded by our own resource endowment, market opportunities, customer demand, strategic vision, and innovation capability. Now, we have already achieved great results. As a next step, we will continue to explore this and try to build these five differentiated growth poles into countercyclical development capability. First, we should carry through with the rural finance plan and be a pioneer in this regard. So against the backdrop of the rural revitalization, of course, agriculture, rural economy is very stable, and there is a huge demand in the rural market with a lot of demand.
So basically, we will have the overall overhaul and upgrading of the rural financing model and build this into a differentiated advantage. First, of course, we need to surround the farmers' demand so that we can combine online and offline and upgrade this from the offline itself. Basically, we can also promote digital transition. Of course, we can also use the tech power to have the customer precision profiling and active lending, so that we can have this highly efficient, low-cost and agricultural financing model with manageable risk. And of course, we should also try to upgrade from this focus on the farmers to on the agricultural industry, so that we can provide services for the supply chain and industry chain of agriculture. And we can also cover the flagship agriculture businesses, small and micro businesses, farmer household farms, and agriculture cooperatives.
Of course, we should also try to upgrade from the product service to eco service, so that we can work together with Post Group and overlay our services with the flow of e-commerce logistics, so that we can have the ecosystem combining flow of commerce, logistics, and finance. Of course, we should also deepen the microfinancing and be a pioneer in corporate financing platform. Of course, these 52 million small businesses and 110 million household businesses are the most dynamic and vibrant customer group. As next step, we will of course try to build our competitive product system and unique risk identification system, and a 3D system, so that we can build our system a unique one. Of course, we should also try to reshape the corporate financing.
Of course, first, we need to focus on the scale, and of course, we can have a big batch of customers coming to us by the year-end. We want to make sure that the growth in micro-lending is not lower than other types of lending, and the share of small customers can account for 30%. And then, of course, we also need to improve our services and promote the one plus N operating and service system... with a focus on the future, and of course, we also try to expand the chain. Of course, we need to focus on the optimum small micro businesses, in particular, to specialize in sophisticated businesses, so that we can provide whole life cycle services for their growth. Third, we also need to expand active lending program.
So we can use the innovation to provide the easiest services and most strict services for them. This can change our dependence on physical review, which is very low efficient and a high cost. And of course, this can also avoid the adverse selection problem for us. We really have a big advantage in the customer scale. We have the tech information capability. As the next step, we of course will need to tap into the data value, and of course have the customer classification and profiling, so that we can have access to the customers. And of course, we also need to consistently improve the scale of active lending, to make active lending a very important advantage in differentiated growth, and a very important way to approach customers.
And then we also need to strengthen wealth finance. We are always convinced that with the accumulation of residential wealth and the asset structural changes, the family, there is great potential for wealth management, in particular, with the recovery of recent capital market. In the second half, wealth management will have better days. We've already come up with a three-year action plan to plan for the development. As next step, we will continue to focus on professional capability improvement. Of course, in terms of system development, team building, channel reshaping, we will try to make new breakthroughs. Now, in terms of customer operation, basically, we are promoting a Jiafu customer close relationship establishment. Of course, through the chain and service, we can actually further improve AUM and growth. In terms of asset allocation, we can provide Yuhang resource allocation to combine online, offline, to cover the whole customer group.
And of course, we will continue to improve the penetration of customers, customers to improve AUM structure. In terms of product service, basically, we will try to build a service system covering all types, strategies and functions. And of course, we will try to build these three so-called mode, system, combining professional product team, a research system, and nimble risk control system mechanism. And of course, we will all try to combine our resources and promote this wealth management as a very feature services and become a powerful competitor in this area. And then we will also try to improve the interbank ecosystem and be a pioneer in this regard. With, on the back of, very stable financing, rich resources and strong capability in innovation and strong brand influence, we will continue to strengthen our lead.
As the next step, we will continue to optimize the interbank ecosystem and promote the scenario and ecological system of the financing, so that we can optimize the structural business structure. And also, we can promote the innovations in trading tools and tactics and models. And of course, we basically can have this so-called seven hall and two area in Together We Thrive. And of course, we hopefully can be a leader in this area and create better value. Thirdly, we are focused on capacity building. We are always convinced that capacity is key to going through the cycles and winning the competition. Basically, it's all about the differential in capability. So we have always been as drivenly focused on capacity building to build our internal strength in 2022.
We said that we needed to improve the professional core system, and of course, we also need to build six capability. It is fair to say that we have already achieved something, and as the next step, we will continue to build on this so that we can make new progress in capacity building, in particular, in the areas regarding long-term development, like technology and talent. We actually will invest more resources to build an even better foundation. In terms of tech, we will ensure that at least 3% of operating income can be invested and benchmarked with industry leaders, in particular, in scenario innovation, product services, and risk management. We can promote digital transition. Of course, we can improve customer experience with the power of tech, and improve business efficiency and business value.
In terms of talent, we will continue to promote institutional reform and optimization, and try to cut back on back office people and increase front office people. And we can also try to introduce better talent into us, and actually build a high caliber team assistant. In terms of innovation, we will actually try to make innovations in business model, customer service, market operations, and system and development, to actually break out of those barriers and let innovation be another driver of growth for us. Dear friends, metal can be shown through difficulties, and by honing, we can build our skills.
Though the banking industry faces a very complex situation, but we believe that only by withstanding the test of time can we become an excellent bank, and of course, we will continue to, to stick to the good path and try to fight and build our own internal differentiated advantage and cultivate our countercyclical capacity and achieve better results to live up to your trust and expectations. And thank you all. Thank you, Chris and Leo. So now we're going to go to the Q&A session. So if you're watching the live streaming, so if you have a question, you can type your question in the chat box. And of course, we have people collecting your questions. And we will try to address your questions. So the first question. Row two. Thank you for the opportunity.
Thank you, Chris and Leo, for your details on the results. I am with UBS, an analyst with UBS. I actually have two questions. The first one concerns credit supply and also credit structure and interest margin in Q2. We know in the first half, it's pretty strong, and of course, in Q2, it was lower than Q1. So what's your outlook for the second half and for the whole year? So will it be higher or lower than Q1? And what's the structure in credit supply, like, retail versus corporate, et cetera? Can you give us some details? And then in terms of interest margin, of course, we're better than other peers.
However, we still face a lot of pressure here. So, what's your outlook for the second half in interest margin? Thank you.
Thank you. Of course, these questions are always asked, and always the first questions asked at the results announcement.
First, we can turn it over to Chris and Leo for this question. Thank you for the question. Actually, in my remarks just now, I mentioned that now the domestic economy is actually recovering. However, we're also facing some challenges and problems. Banks and real economy are symbiotic. We are also facing issues like the lack of effective credit demand and also the interest margin downside. In the first half, we're also trying to act on the demands of the central government and live up to the responsibilities of big banks in terms of lending. You can see we grew by CNY 610 billion, or CNY 75.3 billion more year-on-year. Actually, we are more than 70% through the year, on the annual target, and at the same time, it also drove 2.1 percentage points growth in terms of loan to deposit ratio.
Now we're standing at 58.81%. It is fair to say that the improvements in loan deposit ratio is the biggest or fastest, I should say. It is also fair to say that the lending growth, excluding NIMPs, was CNY 660 billion, even more than the CNY 6,610 billion or CNY 200 billion more year-on-year. That is to say, we really lend to people who really needed money, and this growth was also record high. In this difficult time, this growth was really hard to come by. We actually target our customers. We always believe, have this belief, that the allocation of credit resources for the whole society is not only channeled to the businesses, good businesses, that do not have the demand.
Basically, we need to lend to people who really need the loans and who have difficulties getting the loans, and this actually would be the efficient allocation of credit resources for the whole society. We have done a lot in this regard. So the lending in the first half actually is for those businesses with real need or people with real credit need. We believe that actually it's necessary for us to do this, and more happily, differentiated growth poles are actually progressing and is achieving some initial results. It's also promoting some positive changes in credit, sub-credit structure. First, contribution from these poles are increasing. In the first half, we actually focused on the three: agriculture, rural areas, actually rural financing. It increased by CNY 180 billion or over CNY 20 billion more year-on-year.
The small business corporates loans, especially focusing on the very specialized and innovative SMEs, the incremental part is more than almost CNY 100 billion, which is the margin bigger than the total growth of last year. The pattern or the new pattern of the active credit extension provides the very positive momentum to the growth of the two businesses. And as I've mentioned before, the active credit lenders in the list is 120 million, and the balance of the loans to this the customer is more than CNY 100 million. So that is the year contributions or the breakthrough is brought by this differentiated growth poles. And the second is the differentiated growth poles also brought the recovery of the efficient individual loans.
Means that the capitals and the fundings shall be provided to those in great need, and especially those individuals in the rural areas. So that also enable the growth of the balance. In the first half of this year, the individual housing loan balance increased against the cycle. The margins and also the growth rates are among the top in the big banks in China, and the growth for us is the biggest one among others. In terms of the consumption loans and the credit cards are also recovering and year-on-year increased by more than CNY 40 billion. The margins the market shares is increased by 9 percentage points, which close to 9 percentage points, about 8.7 percentage points.
The third one is that the high yield loans increase also provides momentum for us to prioritize the structural of our businesses. So, in combination, the rate of the individual loans and also the rate of the small end businesses loans increased by CNY 360 billion, and some quarter increased by almost CNY 100 billion. So we actually has dropped the pressure on the notes and bills because the yields for this part in this year is relatively small versus other businesses. And, we structure and restructure the credit structures in here. And in the whole year, the restructuring of the credit structure is stabilizing the NIMs for the whole bank this year.
In the second half of this year, as we mentioned before, to us, the credit extension pressure in the second half is not very strenuous because we have finished the 70% for the whole year target, and we have the five differentiating pole. So that in promoting this five poles, in the process of the promotion of this five differentiating poles, we will further optimize the spread sheet of the credit structure, and is hope that the two small businesses every year, the margins would be increased by 2-3 percentage points every year for this two small businesses.
Based on this business, we'll continue invest in the capacity building of the core businesses, so as to gain at least 70% of the growth, respectfully, for the individual loans and the small business loans. We hope that the individual loans and the loans to the small businesses would account for at least 7% of the total shares of the growth of the loans. So as to stabilize the NIMs and increase the income, and also to convert the capital and transcend the cycles. About the NIM in recent two years, we insist on the high quality development strategies, as we can see that the NIM in the first half is 2.08%, year-on-year, down by 90 basis points.
So in terms of the absolute number and the spectrums of the changes, we maintain the leading position among the peers, which is due to the operational strategies of the differentiated differentiation. On one hand, we promote the differentiated specialized business. On the other hand, through the structural optimization and capacity enhancement, we provide the measures with our strengths. On the liability side, we would focus on the core value creation in first half. The deposit interest, the payout rate is 1.54%, down by 9 BP, year-on-year. Among the big banks, so this is the biggest number in terms of the drop. So it's fair to say that at a very low level or for lower level, compared to the other peers, this drop level is very promising and prominent.
In terms of the asset level, as we have mentioned, by building the differentiators of the businesses and restructuring the credit businesses, we actually have stabilized the pricing mechanism with innovative products. So looking to the future, looking to the follow-up from NIMs trends in the whole year, we have realized the biggest spectrum of the NIM change in the Q1. So in the rest of the quarters, entering to the second Q and follow on, we can see the trends of the dropping of the NIM due to two reasons. The first one is the LPR, whether or not it can continue to be dropped, and that is as per regulations of the government.
And second is the existing mortgage loans, or the size of the existing mortgage loans, and which is up to the changes of the market, as well as the regulation changes. If the mortgage rate interest rate is unchanged, then the NIM pressure or drop pressure is not very big. But if there is a one-off drop of the mortgage, existing mortgage, then the pressure will be spiking. Another pressure is coming from the deposit interest payment rate, whether or not it can be maintained or further enhanced. So the interest pay means the rate of the deposit; it cannot be stabilized, it can also not make up for the trade-offs from the lowering of the pricing.
But I think the spaces for this part is very limited, so if at the liability or the asset side, the yield is dropping continuously and undoubtedly not very long, we will deploy some rearrangement for the deposit side. But on the whole, in the second half of this year, we will see the pressure from the dropping of the NIM, and that is up to the macroeconomic measures from the government, and we'll wait and see. This is for the NIM. So on the whole, for PSBC, we has always maintained the strategic points and the strengths on the NIM management, because that is not simply asking for the yields or the benefit from the market.
It is the hope that the NIM management arrangement can actually divert the funding and the capital resources to the people and the individuals and the businesses in great need of the funding and resources, so as to lower the cost of the interest payment. In this regard, we'll make our remitting efforts and so as to maintain the stable NIM level for the whole bank. That is our efforts. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Liu. Next question? Mr. Roe.
Thank you very much for this opportunity. My name is Ma Tejin from Guosheng Securities. So from the midterm results, the overall growth rate of the revenues and net profit has declined. But of course, there is some indicator of growth and for the dropping. So what is the major reason for this declination of these two indicators? And how can we look forward into the annual revenue and the net profit performance based on the previously introduced NIM potential? So what is the overall potential of the annual revenue and the net profit performance?
Thank you very much, Ms. Ma. So after the interim results is listed, a lot of analysts have posed the same question. So I'd like to invite President Yu to take the question.
Thank you for the question. Well, so the reporters and the analysts must have noticed that in the first half of this year, due to the lowering of the LPR and repricing of the loan assets and the insufficient demand from the market, the whole banking sector is faced with a very tremendous challenge. But like, President has mentioned before, that PSBC has to face these challenges squarely, and we have to guard the retail banking position, and so we have to consolidate our confidence. Especially, we will focus on the agriculture-related business and the micro and the small and medium-sized enterprises, to intensify the differentiating growth point, to focus on our core competitiveness, and the result and performance was very promising. As for the detailed results mentioned by President Liu, the revenues increased by 2.03%.
So that is for the core and outline headline figure. Excluding the wealth management and reserves of this wealth management, excluding this one-off factor, the revenues growth is 3.03%. But that still demonstrates the fact that against a very complex environment, the growth capabilities of the revenues, so compared to the peers, is even more promising. So looking into the whole year's performance and trends in recent period of time, the management executives also had a lot of meetings and to well prepare for this interim result conference, looking to the micro situation in the long term. Yes, we are faced with the challenges and pressures as well as opportunities at the same time, but on the whole, we are very confident about the uprise of other trends.
In terms of the external environment, the long-term uprise fundamentals will not, will not change, because Chinese economy is resilient with a great potential. Especially recent a period of time, it is quite flexible due to the promulgations of the deployment of the rearrangement of the macroeconomic measures, including the retail and the banking and the local government debt policies, and the capital market revitalization measures, and so on, so forth, featuring stability of the confidence of the private sectors. And so there are 31 policies from the central government on promoting the capital market as well as the SMEs' confidence. And previously, we're also attending the central bank health conference. So I believe that after these policies and measures being landed, we can see the absolute uprise and the turnaround of the economic curve.
So, that is very conducive to the returning of the confidence of the investors in the market. I believe in the second half, we can see the uprise of the trend. So that is from the external environment. And internally speaking, we are going to continue the differentiated development, focusing on the agriculture businesses, SMEs, as well as the residents and the farmers at large. Because these are the three major populations which are most active in the market, that's why we have issued a series of the reforms and innovative policies to unleash the dividends of these policies under these populations. So through these differentiated strengths of the PSBC, I believe that especially against this countercyclical environment, we can unleash our strengths. In the second half, I believe we have to stabilize the NIM.
Lower the cost as well as stabilize the NIM and increase the non-interest income and so lower the cost. Especially for the interest revenues in the first half, we have withstand the stress of the market. The NIM is 2.03 by the end of the first half. That was reported publicly last yesterday, and that was also the very unique one among the peers. Compared to the Q1, up by 1.34 percentage points. In the next half, we will continue insisting these very effective measures.
On one hand, at the asset side, we'll put forward the scaling up of the businesses in terms of the loans, so we will seize the opportunity of the turnaround of the market from the market, and to serve the real economy, especially for the agriculture businesses and the specialized innovative and sci-tech companies and the small businesses at large. So in the whole year, we are going to reach CNY 900 billion, and we have finished 70% of them. The whole year, nine hundred billion, there is no problem of that to accomplish. And we'll try our best to reach CNY 1 trillion for the credit extension. So we have the targeted population or the customers, and we have also a lot of enablers.
One is, our ability to withstand the, stress and seize the opportunities and encourage the repricing of, the, loans. In terms of existing loans, we have to lower, the interest rates, and, also the, active, momentum from the capital markets has to combined with our own ability so that we can extend the network coverage and lower our network of the coverage of the businesses to the lower end of, the market.
Of course, we also need to promote the characteristic development to maintain our leadership in interest margin. Second, I'd also like to talk about how we can improve non-interest income, and of course, we will try to make a balanced development. On the one hand, we need to maintain the momentum in retail and corporate business. Actually, excluding the wealth management, this one-off factor, we grew by 24%. And of course, this is something we need to keep up in the second half. And of course, we also need to take advantage of Together We Thrive platform, so that we can actually build our position as a featured retail bank.
And of course, we will also try to maintain our leadership in public funds and ABS, so interbank investment business, and CNY 540 billion is the real amount. And of course... And thirdly, in terms of cost control, on the one hand, we need to further accelerate institutional reform and manage the operating costs, and of course, we also need to— So basically, in terms of operating income and profit growth, we are still very confident. Thank you. Next question, row four. Thank you. I'm with CICC. My name is Lin Yingqi. I'd like to ask a question concerning asset quality. We know asset quality for the first half remained stable, so can you actually give us some details on breaking down by region industry?
Second, did you see any changes in terms of asset quality in retail and corporate in the second quarter, and what's your outlook for the whole year? And what would be your major priorities in terms of risk management? So, Mr. Yao and Ms. Yao, thank you for this question. So I think you asked three questions. Let me try to take these questions one by one. The first one, you asked about the asset quality by industry and area. It is fair to say that the asset quality was pretty stable. NPL ratio 0.81%, down by 0.03 percentage points from the first half. So we maintained a pretty good position. In terms of region, basically, the NPL ratio in west slightly ticked up, whereas other regions were down.
By the industry, according to international standards, the 16 industries where we really had a lot of holdings, two areas, water conservancy, road management and leasing and commerce, service, we saw the ticking up of the NPL. Basically, that is due to some large amount customers. As for other industries, the NPLs are down. Okay, this is my response to your first question. Your question in terms of the changes in retail and corporate, so basically, corporate lending, the NPL has always been pretty low with us. The NPL formation rate in the first half is 0.3%, down by 0.12 percentage point from the first half. Specifically, in Q2 itself, the NPL formation ratio was 0.1%, better than in the first half. Then when it comes to personal loan NPL formation ratio, we remained flat.
So it was 1.23%, down by 0.01 percentage point from the first half, and the NPL formation ratio in Q2 per se was 0.27%. So we saw improvements quarter-over-quarter. And of course, there are differences from one product to another. Basically, in terms of housing and personal business, loans NPL was ratio, and we saw moderation in the non-housing loans. However, there was some tick up in credit business NPL ratio. And thirdly, some risky areas—there's some areas where there might be some risk or the home asset quality outlook. Basically, these risky areas are where we put most of our attention here at PSBC. I'd also like to take two perspectives.
The first one is fast lending, and in terms of credit, this is what the market has been paying close attention, and housing development loans and also local government financing platform. Well, it is two areas, though, our share was very low, both under 2%, and asset quality pretty stable. However, these two areas are the riskiest areas that we paid close attention to. And then non-credit. Financial market and interbank basically are big chunks of our business. So we have always been paying close attention to small and mid-sized financial businesses. And actually, non-credit, there was no new NPL in the first half. And small and mid, small and small financial institutions, the risk is manageable in terms of retail, as I've just noted, in credit consumption loans, we face some pressure, in particular, credit and non-housing consumption.
This is what we keep close tabs on. And then also suspension of construction and repayment disruptions. Basically, now we're pushing ahead smoothly with the assurance of a timely delivery. So basically, the pressure is moderating. And now we believe in a second half, with the kicking in of all different macro policies, pressure will be further mitigated in this area. And as for the whole year, we believe we will have a pretty stable picture, and these are the reasons. First one: on July first, the new financial assets classification came into effect, and we actually implement it in even stricter manner than the regulatory requirements. This will further consolidate the foundation, and our special mention and overdue ratio remain pretty low, which are 0.62% and 0.96% respectively.
So the downward movement of asset quality is overall manageable. And then basically, we will continue to improve credit risk management. On the one hand, we need to further deepen industry research, and then access policy is very stringent. And then we are also increasing our efforts in key areas, and then smart risk control is also deepened in terms of adoption. And then the disposal of NPLs is also better because we have better capability. So I think these factors combined really boosted our confidence that we can maintain our asset quality at a pretty stable level for the whole year. Thank you. Thank you. Next one. From CCTV. You mentioned you have 40,000 outlets. You also talked about a rural finance. I'd just like to ask about the priorities for rural finance, and you also mentioned that we need to upgrade rural finance.
Can you tell us about the second half? What are the priorities for rural finance? What are the new approaches? Thank you. Rural finance and rural revitalization are actually the first one in our five differentiated growth poles. So we would like to turn it over to Director Liang. Thank you. So these are some data points I'd like to give you. At the end of June, the balance of the agricultural loans standing at CNY 2.04 trillion, by CNY 232.9 billion or 12%-13% actually, food related loans, 130 or by 13%. Well, asset quality NPL ratio was a mere 0.85%, remaining stable. You also asked about some of the progress or the priorities for investment in first half.
The first one, industry lending or loans. Actually, industry revitalization is part and parcel of rural revitalization. In practice, we have also seen that there are different feature industries. I personally visited someone, for example, a Majayo in Jiangxi Province, or some other product, produces in Guangdong. They have different demand for credit in terms of the term and also the amount, and also the way of extension. That has to do with the features of the industry. And of course, there are no collaterals. Basically, it's just a case-by-case situation. Basically, we just match the industry with the lending products, and sometimes we provide a large amount of loans to the customers. They are welcome, the customers. They actually fit well into rural revitalization drives, active lending. Just now, some other colleagues mentioned this.
So basically, you take advantage of big data to actually tap into the 600 million customers and come up with the customer profile, so that we can select the people with credit demand, which are very creditworthy. And of course, we can lend to them instantly. It's a very easy process. So this is just one aspect of the story, but there is another side. It's not just about growing the business. Basically, this is also the way for us to improve our capability, handling the whole process. On the one hand, it can cut the operating costs and improve the operating efficiency. So customer manager becomes a bigger and more important role. So customer managers can be freed from this complex job.
They can handle other, complex jobs, dealing with the real things, where they can get down to the grassroots and do something else. So basically, my colleagues talk about the data points, and we started from last year, and first half, we topped CNY 100 billion. And, actually, CNY 71 billion in the rural finance and total asset quality on top of active lending shows better quality than other types of loans. Of course, we're trying to punch CNY 400 billion this year, and at least first half, we did a good job. So this actually means that we still have a lot of potential to be tapped. And I also like to talk about the combination of four flows: flow of commerce, and logistics, and information, and logistics.
In particular, in the countryside, we did this together with Post Group. In the first half this year, through the collaboration, we already managed to grow this. And the growth volume is almost the same as the whole last year. So basically, the effect of the collaboration is now shown and shows better results, and these are some of the characteristics in the first half. As for the second half or even beyond, I'd also like to talk about three aspects. The first one, business. We mentioned several directions. First, we really feel that we actually are welcome to the customers because we provide what they demand. And in terms of market capacity and the data itself, we still have a lot to do, and of course, we still need to improve this.
Of course, we also need to maintain a stable growth in traditional lending. Then in terms of capacity management?
The big logic is to lower the cost and enhance the efficiency and control the risk through digitalization to realize this tasks. There are two aspects. The first one is through the ability enhancement by digitalization. We believe that in the staffing, so we have to set up the special department, staffed with the technical people, so that we can realize the conversion of the acquisition of the customers and to empower the management of the customers. In the second aspect, in terms of the management model, we are going to promote the overall upgrades of the auditing systems and approval systems, especially the post-market service systems. So we have to enhance the efficiency of the management model, and that is second aspect.
Third one is about the coordination or the peers coordination. The Postal Savings Bank actually has the elements of the flows of the four aspects or four elements, and that is the place that we can generate the momentum from. But this momentum is yet to be unleashed, and it's the first time. For so recent years, we have made dramatic efforts on this launch. The first one is that in terms of the agricultural-related business development, and the second is the stores development, to acquire more customers by making good use of the environment of the postal logistics, as well as the alluring market of the networks so that we can rejuvenate the rural development and to develop the more customer base.
Before, most of the base of the customers are in the postal aspect. As for the duty or the e-commerce spectrum, there would be some demand or general demand from this market as well. We want to develop the list of the customers so as to satisfy the requirement to the services in the future. Thank you, Ms. Liao. Next question?
Thank you very much, Mr. Ju, with Shanghai Securities News. In the first half of this year, PSBC's corporate loans are very good. What are the major reasons? For example, among the newly added AM, what are the challenges to gain of this momentum? What is the ideas for the future progress? Yes, asset management is one of the five major poles of the growth. So I'd like to invite, President Liu to take the question.
Thank you very much for your concern and care of the wealth management. So, for us, we are actually the late starter of the wealth management, but the speed of us is very fast and very high. I'd like to report you in briefly about several figures. First one is in the first half, the AUM of the individual customers increasing by 14.5 trillion yuan. And the annual margin is CNY 600 billion. The second is the trend of the growth is very strong. The VIP customers is more than 50 million, and a Jiafu and above, which is the customers with the wealth of more than CNY 500,000.
The number of these customers in this level is more than 4.7 million. So the growth rate of this spectrum is about 11.6%. The next one is the high quality development. The individual deposit interest, the PR ratio, maintained very steady level among the peers, 1.57%, compared to the end of last year, down by 8 BPs. That is also a very good performance of the wealth management. Another point is, the long-term regular premium is more than CNY 80 billion. Another credit is, the equity fund sales, close to 100% year-on-year as a growth point.
So from last year, same period of time, all the way to this year, against the cycle situation of the market, the equity fund sales volume is excellent. So when the market in the valley, we have to make use of this momentum to gain more benefits in the future. And we actually have made a lot of efforts on educating the customers to gain the long-term potential of the premium momentum for these customers. So these are the efforts we've done to generate the income of the intermediaries of the wealth management on year-on-year up by 30%. And the non-interest revenues is only 1.81. But if we degrade them into different segments, like the reserves, apart from the reserves, the intermediary income increase is very tremendous.
For the wealth management, the growth is more than 30%. We have intensified the professionalism of the staff. We have promulgated a 3-year action plan for the wealth management products. And the, also the bottom design has been finished. So systematically, we can optimize the arrangement. We are rotating the training of the managers of the wealth management products. We have launched the online mobile applications, and offline, we also initiate a lot of campaigns so that the networks can be maintained, both online and offline, in the omnipresent manner. Previously, we mentioned the AUM growth is very high, but how about the structure? Frankly speaking, the wealth management is both with pros and cons. Yeah, previously, I was mentioning more about the pros, but about the cons of the AUM this year, the structure growth is not very promising.
The major reason is from the sluggishness of the capital markets. The second reason is that from the last year on, the fluctuations of the debt market leading to the fluctuations in the revenues from the debt project, projects. Some customers are just their first try of the wealth management product, and then suffering from the negative revenues of the fluctuations, and their, their confidence has been somehow hampered. Therefore, the non-deposit AUM growth was very sluggish, and the margin is the growth is also very slight. So this year, we have to rely on the growth of the deposit, and that is the slight brought by the market this year. Looking to the future for the wealth management, we're still faced with some problems and challenges.
Yes, the opportunities are promising, and the space for improvement is very big. But at the same time, the challenges are also tremendous, mainly from the external environment. The trends of the external market, including the output market, the stock market, and the debt market, and so on, so forth. In the future, when the market and economy is turning around, when the positive policies are being landed and promulgated, when the market in the different regions are becoming more and more prosperous, I believe the wealth management market will encounter a very promising opportunities. So, apart from the external environment hampering effects, we has to face with a lot of challenges from within. So from midterm or long term, China's economy resilience and the turnaround ability is unchanged.
And we firmly believe that the opportunities for investment in the different products are still very diverse and vigorous. So we have to allocate and deploy the plans for the wealth management portfolios for our customers' investment lies in long-term insistence. So if you are not persistent, you are only looking for the short-term benefit. You cannot get the benefit for a long term, and instead, you will suffering from the losses even. So I think the long-term investment can benefit us a lot, and the values that we create as a target to the customer can be realized with the long-term investment. So in the future, we will make further unremitting efforts in this regard.
Then, to be more specific on the allocation of the resources, we will further deploy the steady portfolio of the products against the cycles, especially the equity funds. Deployment has to be against the cycles. I've been engaged in this sector for 20-plus years, and my experience taught me that at the bad times, if you do not deploy the equity fund, so then you will not gain benefits in the future. So we have to consolidate our confidence about this market for the long term, so that the multidimensional service platforms can be built up, both online and offline, and integratively deliver the products and solutions to the customers. In terms of the management operation of the customers, we also manage them tier by tier, one-on-one, continuously follow up their operation results.
So for the staff development or the team development, also the talents has to be trained and nurtured tier by tier, and the performance had to be audited tier by tier, so as to continuously enhance the ability and the professionalism of this frontier managers and the workers. So I firmly believe that with the very huge customer base and also the tremendous base of the deposits, the PSBC will provide more values to our customers. At the same time, it is our hope that through our efforts, we can create values to our corporate and individual customers, so that customers can enjoy the dividends and benefits of the macroeconomic turnaround, and institutions can also benefit from this turnaround.
Thank you, Miss Liu. And we have answered five questions from offline. In order to have a further multiple channel discussion, I actually received some questions from the mailbox about the concerns on the market. Previously, our management had answered questions regarding the credit extension, NIM, the profitability, performance, and asset quality, and so on, so forth. At the same time, some investors are also concerned about the development of the corporate businesses, and we have observed the good performance of the corporate loans in the first half of this year. They also want to know the major reasons behind the situation. I believe that is also the concern about our strategic outline. Some investors also observed that the PSBC has deployed 1 + N service system, and what is the current progress? I believe that I'd like to take the question.
So you may know that the commercial business, commercial bank is always focused on the corporate finance. In the first half of this year, it's fair to say that the PSBC's corporate finance has enjoyed the increase of the volumes and the premium pricing and the lowering of the core risks. In terms of the volumes of the loans, the size of the loans is increased substantially. The total extension of the corporate loans in the first half, historically, for the first time, surpassed CNY 1 trillion, so that we actually have generated the balance increase by more than CNY 400 billion, and the loans year-on-year increased by 21% or 22%. Among the peers, we are among the top.
So looking into the specific details of the structure for the midterm and long-term manufacturing, green finance and fintech innovations loans, the loans have been realized a two-digit number growth. To be more specific, the very valuable credit resources precisely lended into the real economies development and the sectors related to the real economy growth. And the structures of the loans are upgraded continuously in terms of the specific extension. Geographically speaking, we are observing the strategies of the national government, and the extension are mainly focused on the Beijing, Tianjin, and Hebei, and Yangtze River Delta region, respectively grown by 16.5%. And also the extension of the loans to the SMEs, up by 16 percentage points in the first half. Thirdly, we're also focused on the NIM, as well as the interest rates behind the NIMs.
And so we actually have made a very good momentum out of our network, so that we can surrender our benefits to those areas in great need and the companies in great need of the funding. So in the first half, the weighted average interest rates on the new corporate loans is 3.8%, down by 6 bp, compared to the previous year, and which is among the top among the peers, and the quality of the assets also very excellent. The NPL rate is 0.53%, down by 0.04 percentage points from the beginning of this year. So we will maintain this excellence, excellent matter. And the fifth one is that the overall revenues is increasing very good, very well in the first half.
By the end of the first half, the share of the corporate current deposit by 1.65 percentage points, reaching 66.3%, also excellent among the peers. Combined all of these elements all together in terms of the corporate finance, in the first half, the revenues increased by 4.18%, among which the revenues from the intermediaries up by 71.73%, close to 72%. In this results conference, Mr. Yu mentioned that the postal networks actually can help us to become specialized and selective in the markets among the peers. We have to deepen our C and A G and A B terminal, so that we can develop the wholesale and retail all together. To realize these strategies, the management have proposed a major line that is 1 + n new pattern.
In the first half, we actually wrote this out throughout, throughout the country. So now we achieve six news. First, the new model of one plus n. Our aim is to develop host bank, which is for a long-term partnership surrounding organizational model, service model, and risk model, and all the way down to the incentives model. We actually changed these systems in a drastic way, and then we also further improved our approach. Customer demand is manifold. Then, of course, the products are scattered in different business lines. So basically, we need to focus on customers to improve our one-stop service. So basically, our products cover customer management, product management, team building, management mechanism, digital transition, and risk management. So these are the six integration, so that we can provide these services for customer businesses, corporate businesses, and of course, agency salary payment.
This business increased by nearly 10%. The notes discount customers, the volume increased by nearly CNY 100 billion. Then we also tried to expand our high-value customers. For the first half, we had 170,000 new customers, and 90% of them are active users. The host bank customers increased by nearly 50%. The products holding average per household and RAROC per capita is much higher than other customers. Fourth, against the backdrop of the so-called asset drought, we need to find new areas. For example, in areas in rural revitalization, we identified the high standard farmland and agribusinesses. We actually achieved 23% growth.
Of course, we also promoted this You Prosper, and then we actually had a total of 661.4 thousand customers, with a market share of 40%, and 40% in loan growth. In terms of industry finance, because of the four flow into one, we actually achieved an active user growth of 175%. In terms of rural and urban drive, basically, we focus on industry park revamp. The urban revamp loans by 22%, and we also doubled the loans in industrial park loans. Of course, we also provided other loans, for example, the direct link for customer empowerment. Of course, we also provided the scenario plus a finance. This is a cloud-based platform to serve the micro and small businesses.
And of course, we also tried to have online operation for the supply chain products. And of course, we also tried to upgrade the cash management system, so our customers topped 730,000. And of course, we have also rolled out this non-credit asset collaboration business to meet their diverse financing need. And then we need to further improve the capacity. Without people, without technology, it would be impossible. So that's why this year we actually introduced this combination customer manager plus product manager plus tech engineer. And we basically had some internal competition. Over 20,000 people took part in the competition... just to build the internal strength for high quality development. Thank you. So more questions? Thank you. From Twenty-First Century Economic Report. So I, I'd like to ask a question regarding interim results.
The growth has slowed down. You mentioned the one-off factor. So can you give us some more details on that? And what's your outlook for the interim, results, interim performance for the whole year of 2023? I think this is also a very important question, and of course, we are paying close attention to the future trends. So President Xu, Director Xu. So basically, interim, I mean, the fee-based business or intermediary business is a very important business for PSBC, and this also has been our weak link at PSBC, because compared to peers, intermediary business really accounts for a small proportion. And five years ago, we were close to six, and that's why we put in a lot of work, and we have taken a series of measures, for example, improve our capacity, expand the market.
Over the past five years, the growth rate of fee-based business was 22.76%, the compound growth rate. So now it grew from 5% to about 10%. Actually, in the first quarter, we maintained a pretty good momentum at 27.5%. In the second quarter, as mentioned by President Liu, we were down by 1.81%, mainly driven by the one-off factor. So there are two reasons for the very robust growth. That's because first, we have always been sticking to AUM as a guide to promote the wealth management transition. The fee income topped 30% from wealth management for the six months this year, and the corporate side, intermediary business, also saw very rapid growth. So we mentioned the commercial banking plus investment banking.
We also promoted the One Plus N service system. In the first half, the middle income grew by over 70% and 71.73%. Some analysts are saying that PSBC has the resiliency and stability expected of state banks, and also the agility and potential expected from a commercial bank. Basically, you can see 70% growth is really a very remarkable figure. Looking out into the second half, we will continue to maintain the momentum. In terms of retail, we will assuredly stick to wealth management, continue to using AUM as the guide. Of course, we need to put and make equal efforts to grow interest, non-interest. Of course, wealth management, agency sales would be very important.
Of course, we also need to take the advantage of the consumption recovery, because we have the 650 million customers, and 70% are in the county prefectural level cities, which are actually complementary to other banks. Basically, we also need to improve our credit card business. And of course, on the back of 650 million personal customers, we can actually promote the activation of credit card and e-payment, so that we can promote the very rapid development of fee-based business. And another areas where we have advantage, that is the agency insurance policy sales. Maybe we will face some challenge, but basically, we can further improve the penetration and optimize the business structure to maintain our leadership in this business area. So we're still very confident with fee-based business.
In terms of corporate business, the momentum is very strong, and of course, we will continue with the strong momentum. The third one is the funds and asset management. On February eighth, in Shenzhen, we actually launched Together We Thrive ecosystem, which proved very effective. Basically, now we opened 7 halls, including notes, funds, public funds, ABS. So in the first half, the transaction totaled nearly CNY 1 trillion. So our target is for CNY 2 trillion this year, and we think this is not a problem. And of course, we will continue to be guided by research to seize market opportunities, so that we can make a transition from holdings, from the holding of assets to the transaction of assets, trading of assets, to further improve the contribution from fees and commissions. Thank you.
Next question, please. Thank you. Citic Securities.
I'd like to ask a question regarding personal mortgage. Actually, the net growth faces a lot of pressure, and PSBC really bucked the trend and managed to pull out some growth better than peers. So I'd like to ask about your measures and approaches behind that. And there are two questions we paid a lot of attention to. The first one is the prepayment of mortgage loans. So what's your outlook for this? And then the repricing of existing mortgage loans, what's your view on this, and what's your assessment on this? Yes, these are the talk of the town in the market, so we would like to turn it over to Director Liang for a response.
Yeah, several questions. Let me try to take them one by one. The first one regarding deposit growth in housing loans. So basically, the lending increased by 30%, net growth CNY 60 billion—more than CNY 60 billion. So this is really hard to come by against the current backdrop. We also made some attribution analysis. Granted, there are some objective reasons for this in terms of existing loans. The mortgage loans, basically, a lot of this is rigid demand. Over 90% is first homes, and the single loan amount is not very big, under 400,000. So basically, they're not as sensitive to interest rates. So repayment of mortgage loans is not that big of an issue for us, and of course, the measures we have taken.
In summary, there are two things I'd like to share with you here. The first one, we basically focus on a second home. In the past, they used to account for under 40%. Now, first home buyers, first home market, has been sluggish, so we actually increased the allocation of resources to second homes. In the first half, second home loans, basically, you can see, up by 15, more than 15%, and the loans volume increased by over 80%. Risk management is closely connected to intermediaries. So in the first half, we basically increased our marketing to the premium agents, housing agents or realtors. And of course, we also improved our management of them. So you can see, we had quite a lot of progress with regard to the second home loans.
The second one, we also tried to stop the gap. As we all know, in some Tier 1 cities, our market share was relatively low. So starting from last year, we're putting more efforts here in this regard. So in the first half, in Tier 1 cities, so these measures combined basically helped us get where we are. So as far as repayment of deposit is concerned, maybe the pressure for us is not that significant. Anyway, the absolute amount is still pretty big. This is the general trend. You can see the investment climate is not very good, and of course, the investment cost is very high, so basically, people just want to cut back on their interest payment. So it really drives the increase in repayment of mortgage. Of course, we really have a lot, and it's much more than previous time.
In the second half of this year, this situation of the repayment push will be somehow relieved. For those who are willing to prepay, they are free to prepay, and the pressure for the first half actually has been unleashed somehow. The next step is about repricing. If there is indeed a repricing trend, then the interest rate will be lowered, and there will also stand room to alleviate the pressure from the prepayment for the mortgage. For the repricing of interest, we are also concerned about that. That was the August 1, proposed by the PBOC, to guide the commercial banks to regulate and adjust the interest rate of deposit and loans as per regulations and laws. That also aroused a lot of concerns from the market.
I want to emphasize the situation about repricing. The fact of repricing, of course, will somehow have some generative impact on the commercial banks, 'cause after the interest rate is repriced, that would touch the bottom of the market somehow in a certain point of time. After hitting the bottom, the confidence of the market will somehow improve it. For the repricing, it sounds very simple, but very hard to clarify very easily, 'cause in the history, the personal mortgage at a different point of time in the history, even at the different geographies at the same period of time, the policies are different, performance of the market are different. In the end, that'll be up to the policies from the regulatory to manage the whole market.
We have to follow and attract the policies, trends, and to deliver the service to the existing and marginal customers in the mortgage market. Thank you.
So due to the time constraint, the time is running very fast, and the scheduled time for the ending of this meeting is 11:30 A.M., but we.
Still have some questions from the comments in the online stream. There are some friends concerning and caring about the long-term development ability of PSBC, especially they mentioned that they have to know more about the management and development of the systems and the mechanisms, and what are the performance and results of the reform measures. I'd like to turn over to President Liu to take the question from the comment. Thank you very much for the concerns and cares for the long-term development and the future development of PSBC. This question is a matter of whether the PSBC can develop itself with the internal momentum. We fully emphasize on the transformation by reforms, as well as the intrinsic ability and equability.
If it is a bureaucratic company, I believe that there is no speak of the performance enhancement and achievements accomplishment. So, that's why our senior executives and the management pay special attention to the reforms, measures, and achievements, accomplishments for the long-term development and the systematic construction. First, momentum is coming from the optimization of the human resources. The talents are deemed as the most important core asset of the PSBC, the core asset. And around the strategies of the development of the whole bank, we deploy the allocation of the human resources. The allocation of the talents has been transformed from the quantitative increase to the marginal improvement per capita. Also, the allocation of the talents are tilting towards the core businesses.
By the end of June 2023, according to the schedule, the enrollment of the new employees. 60% of these marginal talents will be put into the highly efficient businesses, referring to the 10 per capita. In recent three years, the sales staff developed from less than 27% to more than or around 30%. And in the next step, the reallocated staff for the salespeople will be increased to 6,600. On the other hand, through integrated and intensive operation optimization, we developed the benefits or the effectiveness of the human business resources, especially the centralized collection of the overdue loan payment and the centralized auditing of the people. And we have streamlined 33% of the staff in the auditing, and the time for the auditing in the final stage reduced by 38% of the national average.
For the auditing centralization for the small loans, for example, the Shandong subsidiary, after the centralization of the auditing, the staff reduced by 55%, so this is a great margin of reduction, and the per capita capacity has been substantially improved. Also, after all of this concentration and centralization of the auditing and management handling, the number of the principal bank customers per capita increased by 57.6%. So right now, we are proposing this concept of the principal bank, means that the major asset and the major businesses around the customers will be centralized in the certain principal bank. So after this, the principal bank collection, the efficiency increased by 57.8% for the business handling.
And also, we are tilting the assets allocated to the SciTech, like the SciTech or IT staff in the whole bank, in the whole group, increased substantially. In 2016, the IT people only 387, now it is 4,400. So the team of the IT people is, like, huge. And the IT people or the staff featuring IT have been tremendously supportive to the upgrades of the whole systems of the businesses and the lines of the different products. So right now, 6,500 people are the SciTech, including the headquarters, as well as the subsidiaries and branches.
So for the SciTech people, you can ask for as much as possible because I will be in a position to recruit the IT people as much as possible so as to satisfy the request of the different lines of the products and businesses. So the graduates from the well-known universities are very famous and very outstanding, and which also consolidate my confidence about the future development of this bank, and we're very happy to see that. This is one side of the story. Another one is that we can see the cadres and the leaders become younger and younger. And through the recruitment by university and the society from the market, we have recruited a lot of excellent youngsters. And the structures of the ages and the structures of the degrees, academic degrees, also changed a lot.
The employees below 40 years old by the end of June is close to 70%. This is very tremendous because this is a very old enterprise, and a lot of leaders are senior people. In recent years, they are close to the age of retirement, and they are getting retired year by year, so we have to fill in the gap by young people. In the whole bank, the staff with the academic degree of undergraduate and above is 84.14%, and with a master's degree and above is 85% in the headquarters. The average age of the employees is 34.86 years. That is one phenomenon about age getting younger and younger.
Second is about the reserves of the talents, the introduction of the young excellent talents, especially the graduates from excellent universities. Every year, we recruit them from the university on spot, and this year we also proposed some commercial on the university, and the application number is 1.8 something million. For example, 2,800 undergraduate applicants are from Tsinghua University and Peking University. So that's why we recruited a lot of excellent results of these candidates. We had mentor, and we can provide the training system at the source. So that means that when they are recruited, they are not develop themselves from nothing. They will be guided by the mentor.
For these young people with excellent potential, we will put them into the camp of the reserves, and we will initiate the training camps for these excellent talents. What does it mean, Qiji training camp? Means that we're using the models developed with a cooperation with some developers of these programs and models, so that we can nurture and identify the talents with the greatest potential, and then they will be circled, and they will be identified, and they will be collected all together in this training camp. And last in the first half of this year, we have finished the first batch of the training camp candidates, and they are very young. And we hope that they can grow into some major backbone leaders in the future in this group. And we developed the strategic talents.
At the same time, we also promoted the young leaders. Half of the newly promoted cadres are very young, and the average year of these promoted leaders are at 37.7 years. So they're very energetic, they're very specialized, and very professional, and they are very perseverant and hardworking. So that is the upper stone for the cadres development. Second is promote our integration into the market momentum, so that through the reforms of the system, so as to enhance the efficiency of the businesses. And which of the second tier reforms of the bank reforms. Why we initiate the reform? Because in the past, the second-tier banks, that they are also based on the markets.
They have a lot of their respective subsidiaries, and they have a lot of departments, and so the orders would be delegated from the first tier to the second tier, and the second tier all the way to their subsidiaries. Then this transmission will take a lot of time and energy to finish the job. So right now, we build the second-tier subsidiaries as the vanguard to develop the market instead of a departments of management or administrative management. So we streamline the structures, and through our plan, we can have the reform initiative on this management structures and organizational structures. Then we actually streamlined this 38,100 cadres. Then, the structures of the organization has become streamlined.
Means that the back office is very huge, and the support is very strong, and intensive ability is very strong, and in the middle, we will streamline the middle so that in the frontline market, we would have a huge amount of the talents working for us, exploring the markets at the forefront. So this kind of shape of the organization can maximize the efficiency of the operation. Right now, we are working on this reforms. So this is the conqueror shape of the organizational reforms. And through the rotation and some tenureship management, intensifying the rigid performance auditing. So we require the leaders to finish the indicators of the performance. At the same time, they have to be with this up to the standard of the examination individually.
If they fail these indicators, then they will be phased out. From last September all the way to the end of this June, altogether, the cadres laid off is 34, and they are laid off somehow from their original position. On the whole, this reforms of the mechanism and the systems injected more momentum for the operation of the bank. In the forefront of the sales recognition and the competitiveness of the salespeople in the forefront has been stimulated in the back office. People are tending to coordinate with each other very closely. The sense of the innovations and the sense of empowering the forefront are also stimulated.
Somehow, I must also encourage the leaders from the headquarters to do more things, and I feel very happy about their momentum, and they've been encouraged by these reforms. They are very pioneering, and they are contributors of this company. I very often receive the letter of the recognition and acknowledgment from these subsidiaries to these leaders, because I also added the WeChat account of these leaders as the subsidiary. And say, then you are the banker at the second tier or the third tier, no problem. They are my friends in my WeChat, and so that they can report to me directly, and I can be more informed in the future, clearly, about everything about these different lines of the businesses, especially about empowerment by the sci-tech on this forefront.
The series of similar stimulus measures really improved the dynamics of this institution. Basically, through the internal mechanism improvement and also the improvements to the market mechanism, we can build a very strong internal driving system. The management is full of confidence for the future of this bank.
Thank you, Chris and Dove. Dear friends, we're towards the end of this event. Thank you so much for your support and for your attention. PSBC will continue to our differentiated growth and build our differentiated strengths and advantages. Basically, we just want to return our investors with our superior business performance. That'll do it for this announcement results. Thank you.