Dear respected analysts and investors, dear friends from media, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. It is a great pleasure for us to meet you once again in Hong Kong to report to you our business performance in the first half of this year. I am Xu Xianying, the Secretary to the Board of Postal Savings Bank of China. I will be the moderator of the results announcement. In Beijing and Hong Kong, we have the venues connected for this presentation. We also welcome friends online, and thank you very much for your great support to our bank. In the first half, under the leadership from Mr. Chairman, from our results announcement and the roadshows, as well as other events, we have been communicating actively with our friends, analysts, and investors. Your insights and your recommendations have been adopted and implemented into our daily operations of the bank.
They are also delivering good results through our hard work in the operations. That is why here we are reporting to you our results announcement to collect more opinions and recommendations from you. Now, before we start, I would like to introduce our management to you. In the Beijing venue, we have Mr. Zhang Jinliang, Chairman of the Board. Mr. Chen Yujun, Chairman of the Supervisory Board. Madam Yao Hong, Executive Director and the Vice President. Mr. Xu Xueming, Vice President. In Hong Kong venue, we have Mr. Zhang Xuewen, Executive Director and Vice President. Mr. Qu Jiawen, Vice President. As well as Mr. Shao Zhibao, Vice President. Meanwhile, online, also here, we have managing staff from different departments of the bank. In Beijing venue, we have the department heads as well from different departments. So all together, we have department heads from 23 departments.
During the results presentation, we will share with you our business performance first, and we also provide simultaneous interpretation services to you. First of all, shall we invite Mr. Zhang Xuewen to share with you our business performance in the first half of this year?
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It is a great pleasure to share with you the operating results of PSBC in the first half of 2019. This year marks the 100th anniversary of launch of postal savings business, and also the first year that PSBC was subject to the supervision as a large state-owned bank. Under the leadership of the new board of directors, we will fully implement all the major policies and plans made by the Party Central Committee, and facilitate social and economic development, pursuing progress while ensuring stability. By the end of first half of the year, our total assets reached CNY 10.07 trillion, with an increase of 5.79% over the prior year end. The customer deposits exceeded CNY 9 trillion, to reach CNY 9.1 trillion, with an increase of 5.49%. The operating income is CNY 141.7 billion, with an increase of 7.02%.
Profits before provision is CNY 68.4 billion, with a year-on-year increase of 18.81%. The net profit increased by 14.98% to CNY 37.4 billion, and the loan-to-deposit ratio has reached 51.66%. In the first half of this year, the bank was selected as one of the top 100 Hong Kong stocks, ranked 20th in the main list, and rose further to 22nd in The Banker Top 1000 World Banks in terms of the Tier 1 capital. Fitch and Moody's gave PSBC an A+ and A1 rating respectively, which is the same as China's sovereign credit rating. S&P Global Ratings gave PSBC an A rating, which is the highest rating among domestic peers. Now, let's say the business highlights in the first half of 2019. First, we remained true to our original aspirations and served the real economy in a solid way.
Our total loans to customers stood at CNY 4.7 trillion, with an increase of 9.93% over the prior year end. The inclusive loans to small and micro-enterprises stood at CNY 612.6 billion, ranking second among the industry. The loan accounts registered 1.51 million, ranking first among the industry. The consumer loans increased by CNY 150.46 billion- CNY 1.84 trillion. We granted CNY 209 billion corporate loans to Xiong'an New Area, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, the Yangtze River economic belt, and we adhered to the green development principle. The balance of green credit was CNY 210.4 billion, with an increase of 10.52% over the prior year end. Second, we adhered to the strategic position and highlighted our retail features. Who wins the real retail market can rule the world, and we have a retail gene since our birth.
In the first half of this year, we have made progress in terms of retail customers, personal deposits, personal loans, and income from personal banking. Now, the retail customers increased by 11 million- 589 million, ranking second in the industry. The e-banking customers increased by 20 million- 297 million and exceeded 300 million in July this year. The mobile banking users increased by 21 million- 239 million, ranking fourth among the industry. The personal deposits increased by CNY 452 billion- CNY 7.92 trillion, accounting for 87.02% of total customer deposits. The personal loans increased by CNY 230.2 billion- CNY 2.55 trillion, accounting for 54.24% of total loans, which ranks the first among the industry. The proportion of personal loans to total loans to customers remained about 50%. We have issued 1.94 million new ETC cards.
The newly issued credit cards reached 5.2 million, and the credit cards in circulation amount to 27.52 million, which is a 19% increase rate. The growth rate is ranking the fifth among the 15 major issuing banks domestically. The income from personal banking business was CNY 86.85 billion, up 8.59%, and accounting for 61.30% of the operating income, with an increase rate of 0.89%. Third, we deepened reform comprehensively and promoted transformation and development. The new board has gone from the angle of future development and made great efforts to push forward a series of fundamental work which promises long-term benefits. We improved the strategic development plan and built up our unique advantage of new retail banking. We strengthened technological empowerment by increasing inputs in IT talent team building and fostering new driving forces for technology-based development. We have launched the systematic transformation of outlets.
We cumulatively capped 5,540 counters and adjusted 3,384 tellers to other positions. We accelerated the layout of the financial ecosystem, achieved accurate customer acquisition in batches, and realized online and offline integration. We deepened cooperation with strategic partners by signing the new strategic cooperation agreements with JPMorgan Chase and DBS Bank, advancing asset management cooperation with UBS, and conducting in-depth cooperation with Tencent and Ant Financial in various fields. Meanwhile, substantial progress was made for the A-share offering and listing with the first application to CSRC completed. We launched the perpetual bond issuance plan and have expanded capital replenishment channels. Fourth, we adhered to sound and prudent operation and kept leading the industry in terms of asset quality. In a volatile market environment, everyone is focusing on the asset quality of the bank.
In the first half of this year, the NPL ratio was only 0.82%, less than half of the industry average. The NPLs and special mention loans accounted for 1.49%, which is less than 1/3 of the industry average. Provision coverage ratio reached nearly 400%, which is more than double of the industry average. The proportion of NPLs to loans overdue for more than 90 days reached 1.24. The loans overdue for more than 60 days, and the loans overdue for more than 30 days, classified as non-performing loans, accounted for 99.7% and 97.11% respectively. Fifth, the bank improved asset allocation and continuously consolidated profitability. Our ROE and ROA were 16% and 0.77% respectively. The cost-to-income ratio was 50.95%, down 4.85 percentage points. As our bank with assets of over CNY 10 trillion, we really made that elephants can dance.
Our fee-based business achieved an income of CNY 9,339 million. Maybe you have noticed that our net interest margin fell slightly compared with the same period last year. This is what we had expected last year. We have made active measures, strengthened cooperation with postal enterprises, consolidated our advantages on the liability side, and continuously improved our asset structure. Our net interest margin was 2.55% for the first half of this year, maintaining the leading level among the industry. As interest rate liberalization reform merging two tracks are advanced, the interest margin across the industry will face the pressure to be further narrowed, but we have the ability to resist it. First, we have a unique asset structure, and there is still ample room for the loan-to-deposit ratio to increase. Second, our retail position is clear.
Looking forward to the second half of 2019, the pressure of global economic downside risks still exists, and the domestic economy is also facing the cyclical and structural problems. In facing the challenges and risks, we will focus on doing a good job in our own business. We will push forward the new retail development mode, featuring attracting customers, retaining customers, and tapping into customers' values. We will focus on the following work. First, we will take solid action to push forward transformation and upgrading. The key work now is to transform our potential into actual productivity. One action is better than a dozen of plans. We will push forward the systematic outlet transformation to make the bank intelligent, light, and comprehensive, and further activate the vitality of nearly 40,000 outlets. The auxiliary microfinance at agency outlets has been piloted in six provinces.
Through the four types of cards and the 10 services, we will realize customer acquisition in batches and consolidate our advantage of liabilities. We have pushed forward online business transformation through digitalization and building platforms. We will push forward the development of new generation retail credit factory. We will be leveraging the advantages of the fund and invest more funds in major national strategies and key areas such as Xiong'an New Area, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and the Belt and Road Initiative, and integrate various business lines, and realize the transformation towards customer-centric integrated financial service model. Second, we will continue to make progress while maintaining stability and stick to the bottom line of asset quality. To secure the sustainable development, we must stay in awe for the roles of the industry.
Regarding credit and non-credit business, we believe it is as important to be humble as to be innovative. We will build a full-range, whole process, and all-staff risk management system and strengthen asset quality management. We will continue to focus on large-sized enterprise and small and micro-enterprise customers, and strictly control incremental business risks, actively mitigate existing risks, timely exit from high-risk customers, continuously enhance the credit risk management capability. Third, we will take multi-pronged measures and strengthen technological-driven development. On one hand, we will deepen the reform of institution and mechanism. Comprehensively launch a new generation personal banking core system across the bank, set up the FinTech Innovation Center, and build a new IT work mode. We will set up a science and technology innovation fund to support the incubation of innovation projects and open a green channel for FinTech projects.
We will strengthen the IT talent team building. The number of the persons of the IT team of the headquarters will be double at the end of 2019. In 2018, our investment in IT accounted for 2.75% of our operating income, and this figure will increase to about 3% this year. On the other hand, we will have an open mind and sharing idea to continue to cooperate with FinTech enterprises to accelerate the building of the distributed architecture and 5G intelligent outlets. Fourth, we will stimulate intrinsic potential and build a win-win ecosystem. It is inevitable for banks to conduct vertical and horizontal cooperation. We will make full use of our advantages, build various scenario platforms, integrate financial services, delivery service, and rural e-commerce with the customer's production and life. We will cultivate the scenario service for the general financial service, consumer finance, interbanking business, and others.
At the same time, we will strengthen the resource sharing with Tencent, Ant Financial, and other strategic investors and deepen cooperation regarding the online and offline integration. We will cooperate with JPMorgan Chase and other institutions to promote outlet transformation. We will make full use of our respective resources and advantages to achieve mutual benefit and win-win results. Fifth, we will improve management capabilities and lay a firm foundation for long-term development. We will do a good job in economic capital management and strengthen capital return transmission. We will optimize financial management and improve performance evaluation. We will carry out operation management and promote transformation towards digital and intensive operation. We will strengthen human resources management and attract talent with an open mind in various business fields. We have open social recruiting and hunter recommendations.
We will improve the existing HR mechanism and adopt a flexible appointment, dismissal, promotion, demotion, and compensation mechanism for employees to fully stimulate the organizational relativity. Finally, thank you for your long-term support and attention for PSBC. PSBC has grown and developed with your witness. In the next stop, we will bear in mind that time and tide wait for no man. We will accelerate the reforms and transformation, continue to maintain high-quality development, and reward our investors with satisfactory performance. Thank you all.
Thank you very much, Mr. Zhang, for your presentation. I believe that you've got a clear picture from the previous presentation, how we are working hard to maintain high quality of growth and the transformation of a new type of retailing business. Now, I would like to open the floor for questions. For the interest of time, for the interest of a smooth operation, I would like to take questions from the Hong Kong venue first and then later Hong Kong venue. For the interest of time, please raise one question per person. Before you raise your question, please identify yourself. Now, the first question, please. Thank you.
Thank you very much, management, for this opportunity. Chen Shuqing from Huatai Securities Research Institute. My question is about LPR reform as well as the NIM. PBOC announced that the LPR reforms several days ago.
I just want to know for PSBC, what is your take on it, and how are you going to do it? As for NIM, I noticed that the management said that even though there are difficulties in the market, the bank has still realized that 2.55 NIM in the first half, even though there was a slight drop. However, compared with other competitors, it is still high. So how are you going to maintain this advantage, and how are you going to manage the NIM? How do you think about the savings and the loans, the interest rates? Do you think that the long-term savings rate, how are you going to raise it?
Thank you very much, Shuqing, for your questions. I would like to invite our chairman in Beijing venue to answer it.
Thank you for your question. Recently, PBOC just announced, and after finishing the mechanism from LPR reform, it is also for the sake of improving the efficiency of the passing of interest rates. This is also a very important milestone for the interest rate marketization. According to international experience, in the very early stage, usually the NIM for all banks in the short period of time will suffer from the pressure for tightening and the narrowing. Because of a different asset structure and the liability structure, the influence can be different to different banks. However, considering the pricing level of loans, it's already very high. So overall, we think that it is controllable. For PSBC, there are challenges, yet there are opportunities as well. Now, let me focus on the opportunities first. First of all, we have about 600 million individual customers for PSBC. This is very big.
Because of the interest rate marketization, we have to mine deeper of this mine, and this is a very important growth point for the bank. For the bank, we have been sticking to the retailing strategy for a long time. Therefore, for interest rate marketization, we believe that we have a pretty good adaptability. Mr. Zhang said in his presentation that for the individual banking sector contributed over 61% in our total business. This is pretty high among all the banks. This is a very special opportunity for us in the past several years. Our NIM has been leading ahead of others. Last year, we were ahead of the top five banks by 60 basis points.
This year, the NIM narrowed down a little bit, mainly because of the influence of the interest rate operating at a low level in the market, as well as the more competition. This fits for the overall trends in the industry. In the first half, our business performance is pretty good, and the profit before provision, as well as net profit, realized the two digits growth, pretty high. The provision rate is also increasing year by year. As for how to maintain the leadership of the bank, as well as the growth ability, we have a full confidence.
Now, I would like to share with you very briefly from the asset finance and liability side as well as the revenue, as it is the customer side. First of all, from a liability end, we have to go deeper to our advantage of our savings, so that we reduce financing cost, along with the monetization of interest rate in China. How to acquire low cost of financing has been a very important core competitiveness for a commercial bank.
Along with the lower financing cost, can we serve real economy better so that we can effectively reduce the financing cost for all the businesses? In order to reduce the financing cost of all businesses, for a bank, we have to reduce our financing cost first. In terms of the saving, our mentality is that we stick to the quality as well as efficiency first. We do not pursue for the market share of savings purposely. We do not pursue for the scale, just in order to be number one. The quality and efficiency will be more important. We work hard to accept high quality of our savings. We are running 40,000 outlets for the time deposits and as well as the low interest rate savings. Those are our targets. This is about the savings.
Specifically, our strategy is for individual customers as well as the corporate customers, their payment settlement will be one strategic part for us. Through the payment and settlements, we can improve the thickness of the customers and reduce the sensitiveness to interest rates. The assessment and clearing, cash management, custody, agency services, like the seller payment, the PO outcome payment, as well as some other payment services. Those are the areas that we can work hard to improve the thickness of the customers. Corporate customers, we shift more to transaction banks. For example, the coverage online banking, the cash management, and so on and so forth. We must improve our quality of our services. This is about liability end. As for asset side, we optimize the asset structure to improve the overall yield of assets.
First of all, we must keep improving our savings and loan ratio. The yield of our loans is higher than the financial investment yield, by 92 basis points. If we can keep improving of the ratio, then the asset yield can also go up accordingly. In the past few years, this ratio has been going up year by year. In 2016, it is 41%, and in the first half, it was over 51% already. In the upcoming three years, this ratio will continue going up. Therefore, our yield will also be brought up accordingly. This is something that other banks don't have. The average yield is over 70% for the banking sector. Secondly, for the retailing banking will be another area we will work on, and we'll work hard to improve its contribution because of the impact on the market.
This is different from the corporate loans. Retailing loans will be another area that we must improve to improve the overall yield of loans. As the next step, we will focus more on the growth of our retailing loans, particularly in terms of controlling under the conditions for controlling risks, auto loans and the comprehensive loans, the credit installment loans, and so on and so forth. Those are the key areas of our retailing loans. This is a very clear positioning of our retailing loans. 60% of the newly added loans were directed to retailing area to support people's consumption upgrading needs. As for the individual loans, it's CNY 2.5 trillion, accounting for 54% of our total loans, already beyond 54%. Among all the banks, this is pretty high for retail loans, is over 54%. This is about asset end.
As for our revenue side, we must keep improving our capability and improve the revenue. For the handling fee, the commission fee, there's a 55.7% of growth, and this is a very high speed of growth comparing with other banks. But you must see that for the intermediate business, our revenue is only 6.59% of our total revenue. This is very low. This means that there's a great potential ahead of us. In the future, we will focus on the following areas to improve for the revenue from the intermediate business. Number one, credit card business. The gap is mainly reflected on the credit card business because we haven't done a good job in this area.
Currently, we are going through a reform into this department, and we are recruiting more people so that we can improve the size as well as the quality and efficiency of our credit operations. This will be the major point for our intermediate business growth. In the first half, our total number of credit cards issued is only 27 million. In terms of the digitalization, we are focused on the QR code payment collection so that we can bring along the growth of our credit card business in the bank. In the first half, the commission and fee increased by 40% in the e-card payment. This is also very high speed of growth. That is, we are helping Tencent, as well as Ant Financial, Alibaba. Number three, agency services.
For example, the agency services of sales of asset funds, and the wealth management products, and the insurance, as well as precious metals. We have 600 million customers, as well as over 40,000 outlets. There is great potential in this area. Through our agency services, we can help our customers to diversify the asset allocation. Meanwhile, we can also attract more time deposits. For the security underwriting and as well as asset securitization, there is also great potential in these areas. This is about intermediate business. Finally, the cost side. Two things. Number one, we must manage two risks, the risk cost as well as operation cost. First of all, we must control the quality of assets to reduce the cost of risks. Because our assets structure is a very rational one, therefore, we are better at resisting the early risks in the economic cycle.
Our assets quality is good, and in the future, we will continue to improve the quality so that we can maintain good asset quality. Third part, our cleaning its balance sheet. In this way, we can control our credit to loan ratio to a very good level and create more values to our shareholders. Number two, through the technical empowerment, we can greatly reduce our operations cost. In the first half, our cost-to-revenue ratio is 50.9%, down by over 4 percentage points. Operations efficiency has been improving. However, investors and analysts have been telling us that your cost-to-return ratio is over 50%, it is still very high. Therefore, we see great room for us to further reduce this ratio. The main means will be through the technical empowerment, through R&D, through the big data technology application.
We must shift the outlets to more and more digitalized events to improve the operation efficiency and improve the cost of distribution. Generally speaking, I believe that for PSBC, we have the DNA for retailing, we have a unique asset structure, and we have a very prudent operating culture suffers. We will never be aggressive during the course of interest rate marketization. We have confidence that we can keep leading in terms of the NIM, the risks management as well as the financial operations. Thank you for your question once again.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Next question, please.
Thank you, management. [inaudible] . Wendy. My question is about asset quality. We have noticed that through the downgoing pressure for macroeconomy, asset qualities of the bank is also suffering from a pressure. According to the data from the CBIRC, the quality of assets is generally going down. For PSBC, you have a lot of agriculture-related products. In the second quarter, we noticed that your provision rate is improving and your asset quality is also improving. I just want to know what you have done to date. You are a very young bank among all the big banks, and your asset quality is very good. In this round of new credit expansion, your credit growth is also very high. How are you going to guarantee the quality of your assets?
Thank you, Wendy. Thank you for your questions. I would like to ask Mr. Zhang Xuewen in Hong Kong venue to take it.
Thank you for your question. Actually, our Chairman has already answered part of your question just now. A clean balance sheet, as well as good asset quality, have been our key focuses for the bank. This is also the value of investment for us. This is also our business card. In the first half, our advantage has been further consolidated and enhanced. Just now in my presentation, I gave out some figures you may have already heard. I just want to repeat some of the figures. In the first half, our NPL is 0.82%.
This figure is less than half of the average in banks, and it is also below data for the end of last year. For the special mention NPL, it is only 19%, it is 1/3 of other banks. Our assets quality, you can see, has been further improved and consolidated. Meanwhile, we have been implementing a more prudent risk-related policies as well as the other policies.
I can share with you some more figures. The NPL over the 90 days, the value is 0.23%. The overdue 60 days as well as the overdue 30 days as for those NPL ratio is 99.97% and 97.11%. Our provision coverage is about 400x , it is more than double than other banks in the industry. This is a big increase comparing with that of last year. The reason why we are able to keep improving our assets quality continuously is because we have been very strict in controlling the newly added NPL. As for the existing NPL, we also carried out more stringent measures to dispose them through more stringent inspection and examination for early identification and early handling. This is about the first half this year.
In the future, or in the second half this year and the future, we will continue implementing our policy of allocating the right responsibilities, carrying out our tasks with stringency as well as evaluating and reviewing our operations to keep improving our risk management. Specifically, we will work on, number one, we will keep optimizing our asset quality, expanding our retailing loan proportion. You may have noticed for the bank, we have the tradition as well as the advantage of retailing. It is in our DNA. In the first half, our features of a retailing bank has been further reflected.
Be it the individual banking sector, if you look at the proportion or contribution from this sector to the total revenue, all the retailing loans to the total loan as a percentage, particularly our retailing customers in the first half of the e-banking customers, the mobile banking users, they are growing in the unit of 10 million. You know that the retailing bank, particularly the retailing loans, retailing credit, is a small amount and the risks are quietly distributed. Therefore, we have the advantage of fighting against risks in these areas. I believe that we will continue working on improving our capability for managing the risks. This will be a very effective way that we can do. Secondly, we will go on sticking to the policy of a prudent risk management. This is the fundamental thing for us.
Specifically, number one, we will stick to the strategic risk credit risk management from industrial, regional, customer side, product side. From these four dimensions, we will work out the credit limit policies. Meanwhile, we will also stick to the constraint of our total capital through these two measures. We hope that we can direct capital to the areas that has a balance of risks and returns. Secondly, we will strictly limit the entrance of our customers with high risks, specifically for those with the multiple credit, over-credit, as well as those financing from shell businesses, related party, or the in compliance financing and so forth. The postal financial report will also be further checked and handled. We will also work out a responsibility system.
This is the new system we put into place in the first half for the purpose of seeing all the responsibilities are being carried out, whoever does it, who must take the responsibility, and who must sign on it, so you take the responsibility. Next one, we will work out a precaution system for all the classification of different assets, so that throughout the bank, we can control the newly added NPLs. These are our risk policies. Thirdly, we will go on optimizing our methodology and the tools from risk management. Particularly, number one, we will adopt big data related risk management methodology and modules. Number two, we will keep optimizing our risk evaluation system internally. That is to say, we will use big data to optimize our methodology and the tools of our risk management.
Number four, we will take more measures to dilute and dispose risks and NPLs. We will set up the periodical risk handling system. Now, this system has been in place for many years, and it must be keep improving, so that we can identify risks earlier. As for the early stage of the risks and the assets involved, we must dispose them, we must handle them as quickly as possible. For those assets that are already NPL, we must handle them in a more stringent way through different measures and different channels. Currently, we have the condition because of our provision coverage is close to 400x , and we have the full capability to dispose all those NPLs. All in all, we have that through taking these measures, we can manage and control risks in the future.
We have confidence that we can maintain a clean balance sheet for the bank as well as a very good quality of our assets, our great advantage. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Mr. Zhang. Next question, please.
Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. Tang Jiabao from Hong Kong Commercial Daily. Just as we heard from the management, retailing has been a feature for the bank. In May, during the capital market open day, the bank said that you are going to build up a new blue ocean of retailing business, and you are going to deepen the transformation of all the outlets. Recently, when I was in Shenzhen, I experienced your new retailing experience center in Shenzhen Bay. Just to freshen up my understanding of the bank. Looking at other banks in mainland China, retailing has been a major focus of transformation. For you, how can you further consolidate and enhance your advantage? Can you please share with us in terms of the transformation of retailing, what are your takes and what is your plan for the future? Thank you.
Thank you for your question. I would like to invite Mr. Shao Zhibao, our Vice President for the retailing sector to take it.
Thank you for your question. Currently, retailing business has been going more and more smart and centralized. This is the merging with the different platforms and scenarios based on big data analytics, as in cross-selling, we can go deeper to mine the customer's retail needs. For a long time, the bank has been sticking to the philosophy of growing retailing as a strategic point. We have 40,000 outlets as well as 589 million customers, as you may have already heard from our presentations.
For the individual deposit users, it is CNY 7.92 trillion. The savings account for 87% of our total savings. This is also number one among all the banks. You can see we have a clean feature of retailing in our business. We have been improving and consolidating our advantage. This year, basically, for the transformation of new retailing, we have done quite a lot of work for the interim time. I would like to report to you very briefly on the areas that we have done to improve it. In terms of top design, we have formed the big retailing segment by connecting the assets side and the liability side via connection of these two sides to realize the sharing as well as the mutual sharing and the cross-selling. Number two, outlet is another feature we have.
That is why we have enhanced our efforts in digitalization and the transformation of all outlets. Such a transformation, I would like to explain to you in two areas, in two aspects. Number one, in hardware. In terms of hardware, our assets, our outlets are going more and more smart through our improvements, through our inputs. In terms of smart terminals, we have already deployed 1.3 ATM in the outlets. In the future, this input will continue for more frequent iteration and more intelligence. Meanwhile, for the e-signing program, we will also go forward quickly. This is about hardware. In terms of software, we have enhanced our over-the-counter operations procedures for the purpose of optimization. Just now, Mr. Zhang already talked about it. In the first half, we reduced 5,541 operations percentages by reducing around 300 tellers.
All of them are actually transferred into our sales team, all these people. Currently, all the tellers are the newly recruited college graduates with a very good quality of the students. Through retailing, we can put them into our sales force. On the other hand, we also work hard to improve the concentration and the intelligence of outlets. Through our inputs to the credit factory, our efficiency improved by 56%. Meanwhile, we have saved 58 for the core positions, for core personnel. Meanwhile, we also work hard to improve our two major projects. That is the marketing project as well as the performance evaluation project. For all the outlets, we have taken different measures through our intelligent terminals.
Through our comprehensive marketing system, each personnel will be able to know what are his tasks and what is the figure of his cross-selling, so that his performance can be evaluated and motivated. In this way, we can motivate the working efficiency of all the frontline employees. Thirdly, we have built up a three-in-one new retailing business model. Under the context of fast-growing retailing business, we make use of technologies by taking the customer center. We have sped it up of the three-in-one new retailing business model. Specifically, the direction of usage. Through online to offline, we can build up the Pan Life ecology so that we can attract more users. For the bank, we have many outlets, and they are located in different areas.
Through our advantage of outlets and resources, plus our active efforts of cooperating with the top 10 online platforms, we have built up the store platforms and the extra platforms, and the members, shopping malls, and so on and forth. By way of special business circles, we can build up platforms to enrich people's life. With all those platforms in place, we can launch activities, providing equities, and services to attract more customers to get involved and integrated into our own platforms of life scenarios. In their daily lives, in everything they do in their work, we can find the right scenario to provide our services. Through building up such a Pan Life ecology, be it financial or non-financial, we can deliver the value to the customers. This is about the direction of our customers.
Through the life cycle, we can direct the customers to our businesses so that they can be aware of our services. In this regard, we have already done some work. For example, today, we just launched our PSBC Canteen in Beijing. You may have already noticed it. We tried it in the Suzhou branch for about one year, and it is very good. After a year, our newly added members was about 200,000. In the past year, the total savings we then withdraw from them is about CNY 6.8 billion, which is very good. This is a very good try through the life cycle. Secondly, we built it with our customer base to further enhance our five competitiveness. In this way, we can return our customers better.
Specific, we have to take measures from different areas to keep improving our brand advantage, the online business advantage, as well as our synergies at the group level. Just now, we talked about the direction of users, and through these five advantages, we can attract and retain these customers. Meanwhile, we are speeding up, belonging to more activities. Number three is about the value discovery and the value mining. We will work together with our customers to mine higher value for them and promote the upgrading and the growth of new retailing. In this regard, our focus is on two areas. Number one, the consumption financing. Number two, wealth management. These are two areas that are focused. In terms of our consumption refinancing, we focus on the online loans as well as business credit cards, other loans as well. Three, the fifth product.
This will be based on our life cycle to realize online Smartization in approving and to deliver better experience to the customers with a small amount, high frequency, and smartize. Offline, for those with the large volume and low frequency, and their manual operations will be delivered to our customers. This is something that we have done online, the credit card. Mr. Zhang already talked about it just now. The credit card, if you look at the number of card issuance as well as the revenue growth, we are still behind others, and there is potential for us to grow. Finally, auto-related products. Wealth management is the second area. We will realign as quickly as possible of our services to medium to high-end customers. We are working on setting up the R&D team for this purpose to deliver attractive products to them.
These are the two areas which we are working on to improve the values to the customers. At the same time, in order to build up the new three-in-one new retailing business model, we have done a series of work. Sounds like a three retailing handlers. Number 1, the savings. We have issued four new cards for ETC, for the veterans, for the Tencent, the joint branded card for the agency services, for example, seller payment, as well as the consumption and the different scenarios. Through a series of measures, we are working hard to attract more savings. The second one is an increase of our revenue. Through the better marketing capability, we hope that we can realize the steady growth of our new retailing as well as improvement in risk management capability. The number 10 measure is on the transformation.
Through the sharing of a customer's data, as well as a 360-degree view of the data, as well as event-based marketing via scenario building, we hope to realize the steady growth of our retailing business. In the second half, we will definitely accelerate in implementing these 10 measures. Finally, about new retailing. Today, the PSBC Canteen just went online. From today on, we are different. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Shao, for your. Time just flies, and it is already past 10:00 A.M. Since we have another venue in Beijing, I think that I would like to take two or three questions from our Beijing venue. I believe that you must have a lot that you want to talk to them about. Just try to be brief. Okay. Beijing venue, please. Mr. Xianying, please take questions from Beijing venue. Thank you.
Dear investors and dear analysts, dear friends from media. Now, I would like to take questions from the Beijing venue. The first question, please. Please identify yourself first.
Wang Shao from 21st Century Business Herald. Thank you for this opportunity. I just noticed that the management said you are going to make use of the technical empowerment. In the first half, we have already seen that you are recruiting more and more technical people, technical talent in the market. All banks are talking about the technical-related inputs, even setting up for the subsidiary for technical purpose. What are you going to do to attract more technical talents? What about the acquisitions in the future? Do you have any specific plans to grow technology internally or jointly with others? Thank you.
Now I'd like to ask Mr. Xu in Hong Kong venue to take this question.
Thank you for this question, even though it is far away back in Beijing. What you said is absolutely right. in 2019, in terms of the information and the technology, our input, our efforts of equipment has been greatly enhanced, greatly increased. Why? Because you all know that the technology on the FinTech has become more and more important for the whole ecology. I think that it is crucial for us. Either you embrace new technologies or you will be phased out quickly. For PSBC, I need to tell you that we have fully understood the importance of our FinTech. This morning, we took extraordinary measures to enhance our team building to promote the agile development as well as implementing technical innovation.
Now we are working hard to build up our team of information and technology. We hope that we can recruit those people, we can retain those people, and we can use them well. This is the culture we want to build up. I must say that in this course, we have taken some very effective measures in order to guarantee that we have the attractiveness to those IT talents. Specifically, number one, we just broke the traditional recruitment mechanism, just as Mr. Zhang said, that the position can be high or low, and the personnel can be moved in or out. From this year on, at the group level, we will offer 10% more based on our basic salary to all those IT talents. Meanwhile, we have also built up the promotion channels for those talents.
Secondly, in the first half, in the headquarters, we set up the FinTech Innovation Center in terms of artificial intelligence, big data, and blockchain, a total of 10 areas. We have built up our leadership of our talent. Meanwhile, we also set up a CNY 10 million innovation fund. At the same time, we built up the 1+N+6 innovation platform. Through all those measures, we have formed a certain environment that everybody innovates, and innovation is encouraged. The innovation is based on people. Therefore, number three, we have taken different measures through social media, through campus recruitment, through headhunters. We hope to attract as many people, as more people as possible. Our team has been expanding quickly. In this process, we have specified a goal of double every two years. In 2019, at the headquarters, our number of IT people is doubled.
Next year, the number of IT talents will also be doubled at the headquarters. So far, the goal we set up in 2010 has been hit. Through all these measures, our innovative results are also emerging. For example, big data, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, including blockchain. A lot of areas. Our cloud computing services, for example, we have over 40 systems that are operating on private cloud. All the employments are done. Blockchain, I must say that we are the first among all the banks to adopt blockchain technologies in the core system. We were also awarded the Innovation Award in China. Of course, we have the smart customer service and the remote robot services, such as robotics. All these are helping with the risk reduction and in efficiency improvement. In short, we take IT very seriously, particularly for the board.
For a long time, we have been sticking to the guideline of planning and adopting new technologies. By taking advantage of such technology, we can speed up our transformation of digitalization for the purpose of building up the new retailing bank. The specific measures are, number one, is the implementation of the 13th Five-Year Plan. We have a blueprint that this year, the 10 platforms, the 10 projects will be kicking off, and in the near future, we will build up our core systems for the individual banking services. Secondly, we will keep building up our team and the IT team to cater to the challenges in the market.
Number three, we will further deepen the governance and the application of technologies, hoping that we can apply big data to cover all our business process, to turn it into a digitized and a self-service type of a business flow. Number four, we will keep promoting the deeper merge, a fusion of technology and business. Agile development is now going on. Meanwhile, we call it ABCD plus 5G. We will work hard to improve the customer's experience through adopting those technologies. Number five, we will continue expanding our collaborations with others, and we have their open mentality, such as Ant Financial, JD.com, and Tencent. Those are our cooperations. Currently, we have already built up such a trend of cooperation in terms of sharing resources as well as mutual benefits.
We have built up a very effective model, and in short, for the interest time, what I answer to you is still brief. We will take advantage of FinTech so that we can realize a leap forward growth in the bank. In the future, the bank will be definitely a FinTech-based bank and a digitalized bank. Thank you.
Thank you for your question. Next question, please. Please identify yourself.
Thank you, management. Daisy Fong from Hong Kong Securities. Good morning. I just want to ask a question about your subsidiary for wealth management. This is a common concern for the capital market, and this is also a good opportunity for the bank. We have observed that you are recruiting the chairman of the board for the wealth management subsidiary. We think that this is a good direction. I just want to know, what is the preparation for the setting up of the subsidiary?
What is the plan, and what is the position of the bank of the subsidiary? What about the transformation direction of this? Wealth management can be very big. It is over the 18 million. For this, the existing non-standard ones, can you please share with us, what about those products for the net value? Because you have the 600 million returning customers, what is the net value concept for customers? Thank you.
Thank you for your questions. Let me take your questions. On the May 20th, the CBIRC approved us to start preparing for a subsidiary for the wealth management. Ever since approval, everything is going on smoothly. Ever since last year, we already started preparing for the subsidiary through, for example, the organizational structure, the IT system, risk management, R&D capability build-up, as well as recruitment. For example, public recruitment, we recruited 100 people at the end of July.
They were all on board, and recently, we are studying the possibility of the system in the subsidiary. Currently, we have already prepared 98 policies and procedures. In August this year, that is not long ago, we issued two indexes. Number one is the one that we issued. This is a rolling index for wealth management. On the 13th of August, in the Bloomberg Terminal, we issued another one that overseas the asset allocation index.
I feel that these two indexes symbolize that our investment of index, we have already made the first effect in the index investments for the subsidiary, particularly by building up the index-related products. This is a very good start. Just now, you talked about the opening date. We hope that we will submit our application to CBIRC for the operations. Your second question is about the wealth management transformation according to the net value customers. Let me take these questions. Currently, for the AUM of 18 million, non-standard assets account for 10%. This piece of data, comparing with other banks, is basically the lowest. That is why we do not have much pressure for transformation.
As for the non-standard assets under the resolution, we will be stringent in implementing the guidelines from the CBIRC, specifically, number one, recalling, number two, back to the balance sheet, number three, to serve new issuance of long maturity products. As for back to the balance sheet, we see that there is no big pressure. For those assets returned to the balance sheet, we will try not to increase any risk. At the end of June, the CNY 17.4 billion of assets are basically also the net valoritized. Particularly recently, the new valoritization has been speeded up. For example, currently, this is speeded 3.6x faster than last year. In the future, we will actively promote the transformation, particularly in terms of the product system. Fixed-income products will be our major focus. For the special mention and hybrid investment will also be our focus.
This inclusive type, the senior Korean type, as well as the anti-inflation type, are also our interest areas. Just as you heard from our Chairman, we have a huge number of customers. 70% of our customers are still on the areas where they have a strong demand for wealth management, and they are more and more aware of our wealth management. So during the transformation, we will be focused on improving the efficiency, as well as information disclosure. The right products will be sold to the right customers. Secondly, we are speeding up our transformation of our retailing, trying to build up the new retailing model. As the next step, we will work hard to enrich our products, improve our efficiency, our services, and deliver better experiences so that the customers can allocate their assets to us. Think about the customer base.
If our CNY 102 per person, that is over 10 million. That is about CNY 1.2 trillion. That is a big blue ocean. Along with the establishment of the wealth management subsidiary, I believe that in the future, our new retailing transformation will be injected to new energy and a new dynamic. Thank you.
Next question, please.
Thank you. Securities Daily, Yao Yuan. For the IPO in A-share market, what is the update? We noticed that yesterday the bank announced that the perpetual bond issuance has been approved. I just want to know, what is the consideration? What is your rationale for the consideration of the capital injection?
Thank you very much. Thank you for your concern for our listing in A-share market. It is something meaningful for us and very significant. It is for us to enrich our platform for replenishing capital to us.
This is also for the sake of the dual listing of the bank. Ever since we kicked off, we already got the support from the State Council and all the supervisory departments. On June 18th, we finished the first application to CBIRC, and later we disclosed all the prospectus, and now everything is moving on steadily, and we hope that we can finish the listing as quickly as possible. We also announced our plan. We will submit it to the EGM for approval at end of October. Ever since the setup of the bank, we focus on the efficiency of our capital utilization. The internal-external capitals are both focused to replenish our capital. The call is not very high. CET1 is not very high, but it is enough to support our business growth.
We also conducted a stress test recently, and the capital stress is under control. For the interest of time, I would like to hand it over back to the Hong Kong venue. Thank you.
Thank you very much for all your questions. Even though you may have other questions to ask, however, just for the interest of time, please contact us if you have any further questions, and we will definitely continue reporting our latest updates to you in the future. Ladies and gentlemen, in the first half, through our hard work, we are able to maintain the high quality of our growth, and it is the government support that we are able to maintain a high energy and the dynamics of our growth.
Please believe that what we said will be done, and under the leadership of the new board of directors, our further dynamics will be released, and our features will be further enhanced, and we will continue delivering good answers and performance to you all. This is the end of the 2019 PSBC interim results announcement. Looking forward to see you next time.