Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. I am the Secretary to Board of Director, Bank of China Limited. My name is Geng Wei. Welcome to our 2016 annual result release conference. We are honored to have analysts from over 60 institutions at home and abroad. Altogether, we have 100 analysts. Thank you very much for your support and concern to BOC. I believe that you would find our conference rewarding today. This conference is held and based in Beijing, and it is also audio-visually linked real-time to our Hong Kong venue. Our 2016 annual results have been announced on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and our website. You could access to our website for presentation slides from today. I also want to tell you that you can also follow our official WeChat account to access to the aforesaid materials.
I want to state that all this financial data quoted today are in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards, except for those specially mentioned. I would like to invite you to attend to this disclaimer before our conference proceeds. Now, I would like to introduce to you the senior management present here. They are Mr. Chen Siqing, President, Gao Yingxin, Executive Vice President, Mr. Zhang Qingsong, Executive Vice President, and Mr. Pan Yuehan, Chief Risk Officer. The release conference is designed like this. We first welcome our President Chen to address the bank's strategy execution 2016 annual results, as well as 2017 outlook. Subsequently, we will arrange a Q&A session, and you are encouraged to raise your questions to the management, and I will reasonably allocate time between Beijing and Hong Kong. Now, let's welcome President Chen, please.
Analysts, dear friends. It is already 18:35. I will be very brave in my reporting because analysts, you are our teachers. You are very good at mathematics. So I will be very straightforward. I will down to earth and to be very frank. First of all, I want to tell you about execution of our strategy. In 2016, we are going to review what we have done in 2016, and we will look into 2017 and talk about our plan. Now, please go to the next slide. To be the best bank to serve society, you will see our strategic position further enhanced from this slide. You will see the overall situation for 2016 in terms of the ROA, ROE, and other core operating indicators. For example, growth rate of asset, liabilities, and profit. Among the average G-SIBs, we outperformed them in all of these indicators.
Also in terms of the rating, we are also the best compared to our peers in terms of the wealth management, among others. We are also outperforming our competitors. Now, what we have done in 2016. We focus on four things. First, we need to integrate our globalization strategy with the national Belt and Road strategic strategy so as to step up the implementation of Belt and Road Initiative. Second, we further emphasized overseas institution network to enhance operation efficiency. Apart from Singapore, nine institutions have been integrated into our Hong Kong platform. Nanyang Commercial Bank and Chiyu Banking Corporation have been sold. Our global presence covers 51 countries and regions. Also BOCI went listed, and also stock price of our bank also was improved a lot. Also in terms of the RMB clearing, we ranked top among the Chinese banks.
In terms of serving society, we have done a lot of work. For example, we are serving SMEs by providing cross-border capital. We have held 30 events so as to encourage the going global enterprises from China and to introduce foreign enterprises to invest in China. These events and this strategy actually reflect our globalization strategy. To serve SME, we focus on three things. One is to increase our credit system and to focus on cross-border matchmaking service model. Also we try to integrate lending and borrowing together. For the financial performance, please turn to next slide. We see the stable increase in profit. In the financial balance, you will see our profit after tax has increased steadily. The Bank achieved a profit after tax of CNY 184.1 billion, up 2.58% year-on-year. Also the NIM.
The Bank's NIM contracted 29 basis points to 1.83% year-on-year, it is quite stable. We feel that for overseas NIM and also domestic NIM has been better controlled. In terms of the asset quality, our asset quality is better. Our figure is 1.46, better than the average 1.74 compared to our peers. In terms of the balance sheet, which has been further optimized, the size has been enhanced. Now we have about CNY 18 trillion total value, increased by 7.9%. The liability has increased by 7.8%. The customer loans balance also grow steadily. I think you are quite concerned about the capital sufficiency. Our capital adequacy was further enhanced with a Common Equity Tier 1 CAR of 11.37%, CAR of 14.28% respectively, up 0.27 percentage point and 0.22 percentage from last year-end. Next slide. Asset quality is very stable.
The NPL provision has been increased a little bit, so the coverage ratio shifted from 153%- 162.8%. So we further enhanced the NPL provision ratio. Also we have resolved the total of CNY 128.9 billion NPAs. Also the NPL ratio and NPL balance are under control. For the corporate banking, we have further optimized the corporate banking profile so as to support the real estate, the real economy. Also we have a very clear strategy for the cross-border projects. We try to invest in those going global enterprises in their M&A activities. You will see our presence in those investigation over those cross-border M&A projects. For those Chinese enterprises going global, their M&A always involve our investment. We also see the deposit of corporate enterprises. We have also improved our management over cash.
In Asia Pacific, we are positioned on the top in terms of the cash management in Asia Pacific zone. We try to enhance our capital and try to manage this capital with some products designed. We have made progress in terms of the strategic adjustment for the personal banking strength. Also the daily average domestic RMB personal deposit grow CNY 371.6 billion. Demand deposit weighted 39%, up 2.8 percentage point. Also you will see some measures, for example, the contribution of personal banking business to total pre-tax profit in 2016 increased 10%- 33.4%, while non-interest income contributed 39.7%. Financial markets business continue to be lead peer in its financial market business with further consolidated strength in global integration operation. Bank continue to increase investment inbound.
We have reached CNY 3.9 trillion in the bond investment, up 18.8%, which can ensure the optimization of foreign currency bond investment profile. This will help us to steadily enhance our growth. On the other hand, we can further and effectively prevent those risks. We have designed some other products. For example, Panda bonds underwriter maintained absolute leading position. Offshore RMB bonds and Chinese enterprise G3 currency bonds underwriter started to rank top in markets. We are cooperating with over 1,000 investing institutions and trading agencies, including exchange Agencies, and we are providing a lot of value-added services and products in cooperation with them. We are very sensitive in risk control, and we want to maintain very good liquidity in investment. Our overseas business, I think there are many highlights which need your attention. The profit contributed by overseas business has been increased to 36.3% of the total pre-tax profit.
Overseas investment will be further enhanced. One Belt One Road initiative is also a very good opportunity for us to enhance our overseas business. We are going to do four things. One, we need to keep abreast of the national strategy. Second, we need to be market-based in developing our business. Number four, we need to effectively allocate the capital. Number four, we need to effectively prevent and control the risk. In this way, we can echo the Belt and Road initiative. We are designing and delivering some products, including some secured bonds. We are upgrading intelligence service with overall improved tech innovation. Last year, we have innovation of our 2,700 outlets with technologies, and also 91% of business originally conducted in outlets now can be made via e-channels. The mobile banking, here I want to make a commercial.
I hope that you could use our mobile banking, which is very user-friendly. I really encourage you to use our mobile banking service. We are now strengthening the stimulation or application of technology to our business, so as to be more innovative and further deliver growth by relying on technology. For our strategy in 2017, which is very simple, represented by a keyword that is stability. The domestic and global situation are still very complex, full of risks. We need to deliver growth steadily. We also need to be steady in the transformation. We need to make progress through steady growth. We will stick to the principle of globalization. We will stick to the principle of serving SMEs, and we need to stick to the principle of IT innovation, and to build our team accordingly, so as to make sure the asset, the volume, will be stable.
We need to set up the adjustment of the structure. We need to maintain a balance between asset liability. We need to keep stable growth domestically and aggressive growth overseas. We also need to be stable in provision of service and try to enhance the quality of the service. We need to work out more measures so as to integrate domestic and overseas markets, the off-balance sheet and on-balance sheet businesses, and online and offline businesses together. In that way, against the competition, domestic and global-wide, we can make a steady growth. Also, we need to focus on the risk control to prevent different types of risk. We will do a better job in terms of the AML prevention and risk control. In facing up to these challenges, we can make further progress. Thank you very much for your attention.
Thank you, President Chen. Thank you very much for your speech. He has talked about what we have done for 2016 and our plan for 2017. I think the analysts may have a lot of questions for the senior management. Let's come to the Q&A session. Analysts, would you please raise your hands if you have any questions? Please identify your name and employer before your questions. Let's start with the questions from Beijing venue. Any questions from the floor, please? This gentleman on the first row.
I am from Taiwan. My question is, BOC, in terms of the RMB internationalization, is leading its peers. But over the last year, in 2016, RMB exchange rate has been fluctuated. The internationalization of RMB has been impacted. We know that the RMB exchange rate is getting stable, the capital outflow is slowing down, and we see the signal of recovery of global trade.
I wonder if the management see the increase of demand for cross-border financial business. In the long run, are there any business opportunities generated by the RMB internationalization? Thank you.
Thank you very much for your question. Let me respond to your question. I will try to be brave in response. RMB internationalization. The U.S. depends on US dollar, and China depends on RMB and also PLA for national development. Globalization trend is not reversible, and RMB internationalization is not reversible. In the past, we had the RMB internationalization based on the RMB appreciation. We saw the inflection point at the end of 2015. There is another fluctuation at the end of last year. There is a normal trend. Either appreciation or depreciation of RMB in different stage, RMB internationalization will remain unchanged. Only with RMB internationalization, Chinese economy can be fully integrated into international economic development.
With that, China can remain its second position in terms of the aggregated economic power. In terms of the GDP, China is not lagging very behind compared with the States. In terms of the trade proportion, China is also competing very closely with United States. In terms of the foreign investment, outbound investment. The outbound investment from China is also increasing very rapidly. If we combine mainland China with Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau, China is also catching up. I think the last point is the currency, the power of the currency. The monetary policy is very important. For 2016, we did not foresee the slowing down of internationalization of RMB. We have joined the SDR, and the New York branch became the clearing bank in the United States.
What do we mean by RMB internationalization? In U.S., there will be a lot of RMB, and there will be no greenback, a lot of red currency. It means that RMB internationalization will be very successful. Bank of China benefits from RMB internationalization, and also we will be a leading force in promoting RMB internationalization.
Thank you. I would like to allow another question from Beijing. That beautiful lady.
Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity again to discuss with you. I am from Haitong Securities. My name is [inaudible] . I want to ask a question. We take note, the central economic conference mentioned that we should prevent risk, reduce leverage, and increase risk control. Mr. Zhou Xiaochuan repeated recently that we should get out of quantitative easing.
Under this backdrop for our lending, for our pure businesses, how can we deal with this kind of external situation?
Thank you for your question. I summarize my answer. Just now, Mr. Chen mentioned that six stabilization and six improvement. The first part is asset scale will be stabilized and improve structuring, restructure of the Bank of China. We have CNY 18 trillion of asset. We do not want to seek further scale increase, but we want to improve quality. That is the first point. Second, about asset business. We stick to two principles. The first is risk assuming and balancing with that of profit-making. Next is capital charge. These are two principles of us. Based on these two principles, we will balance our assets, that is lending and securities investment. For lending, that is the main business that we are having relationship with the customer. It can bring us comprehensive income.
While for securities have less credit risk because it is mainly central government debt and local government debt. The yield is good with fixed rate and floating rates. We have a combination of that too. Now the lending is generally stable, and we are expecting that the growth rate for lending shall be 8%-9% lower than 2016 growth rate. While bond investment growth rate for the group as a whole will be faster than lending growth rate as the same as 2016's performance. Fourthly, asset lending should be supported by liability businesses, so we pay attention to deposits. Deposit is the business of a commercial bank. So we focus on deposit-taking, hope that it can be faster than lending book growth. It will be 11%, according to our estimate. We do have problem with deposit taking.
We hope to get some low-cost deposits with good customers. Then next point is about pure investment. We believe that pure investment is a liquidity tool, but it is not an active engagement of the bank.
Thank you, Mr. Zhang, for your answer. We have Hong Kong venue as well, with dozens of analysts participating in our meeting. Thank you for participating in our meeting. Now we leave some time for Hong Kong. Now the floor is given to Mr. Xie at Hong Kong venue to invite questions from Hong Kong venue.
Thank you. Thank you, Beijing, for your time given to us. Thank you for giving me this opportunity. I am from CICC Securities. My question is related to asset allocation and related to lending. In 2016, we found out the Bank of China's lending is mainly composed of mortgage and infrastructure development.
So I want to ask the management, in 2017, for mortgage, do you think that mortgage will grow by so much? Besides mortgage, for corporate loans this year, what are the policies for the corporate loan in 2017? Three months have passed for 2017. Looking at the first quarter performance, real economy lending demand, do you see a recovery of this demand from corporate lending in real economy?
There are many questions here, so I try to answer this question. First, for BOC in 2016, our credit or lending grew steadily. In 2017, we plan to have 8%-9% growth rate. Generally speaking, this will be a stable amount of growth. However, structurally, we will make some adjustments. As you mentioned just now, last year, within our lending, personal loans was the major driver of growth, while corporate loans grew steadily for overseas and domestic market.
Overseas corporate lending grew strongly. This is a happy growth for us. Corporate lending increased by $12 billion. This is net growth. However, for trade finance, there is a sharp decline. Overall, corporate lending increased steadily last year. For this year, we hope that the overseas lending, looking at the current market condition and market demand, we expect that for this year, BOC's overseas lending growth rate will exceed the domestic lending growth rate. Looking at the domestic lending, we hope that we can focus on the strategy of supporting real economy and consumer consumption to arrange our lending. For personal loans this year, we will strictly implement the country's macroeconomic control policy to steadily arrange our mortgage loan for residential houses, and we will pay attention to the regional allocation and the speed of sending out loans.
The growth rate and the amount to be increased will be stabilized. Looking at the corporate loan, last year, domestic corporate loan grew by CNY 100 billion, a rather low figure in recent years. The major reason is local government bond investment to replace LGFV loan. This is not only for BOC, but also for other banks. There are some repayments from LGFV, so corporate lending increased less as compared to the previous year. However, the total lending amount is rather huge. For this year, according to our policy, we will focus on the key sectors of the national economy and the key industries. For example, infrastructure project, advanced manufacturing industry, and strategic new emerging industry. Looking at the regions, we will focus on Jing-Jin-Ji, Yangtze River Economic Belt, and the Free Trade Zone. Also, we will support the industrial upgrading technical innovation companies.
We shall emphasize our support to small and medium-sized companies. We will also focus on poverty alleviation projects. This year, we will have this kind of steady growth. Corporate banking and retail banking will be more balanced. Looking at the 2017 first quarter, we feel that real economic demand is recovering. We feel that real economic demand for lending is increasing in the first quarter. That is why first quarter corporate lending demand and actual lending result were rather good. We hope that in the following part of the year, based on our liquidity policy and asset and liability arrangement of the bank, we can continuously support real economy. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Gao. Please, we allow further questions from Hong Kong venue.
Thank you very much for giving me this opportunity. I am from Morgan Stanley.
My question is about NIM, because NIM is a common interest to us. NIM year-on-year is not decreasing, and quarter-over-quarter is stabilizing. I want to know, what is the NIM trend this year? Also, interest rates of Bank of China will increase, and also US dollar interest rate is increasing. Do you think that NIM will be stabilized this year? Mr. Zhang, please answer this question.
Thank you, Mr. Xu, for your question. For NIM, this is a question of common concern because this is the major source of income. We will say NIM performance as compared to comparable peers are similar. There is one difference, that is in 2016, NIM reduction was the smallest among peers. The reason of narrowing NIM was industry risk, because the unparalleled interest rate reduction had a bad impact on NIM.
In May 1st, there is a business tax to VAT reform, resulting in some one-off factor. If we deducted this one-off factor, our NIM is not 1.83, it is 1.92. So nine basis point difference. That is our industry trend. Bank of China, on assets and liability side interest rates, marketized loans is the highest among peers. Bank of China is very competitive in coping with interest rate liberalization. Our performance last year was evidence of that. Looking into 2017, we are seeing some positive and negative factors as well. Positive factors are US dollar interest rate hikes and domestic interest rate increase. We are interest rate sensitive. This will contribute positively to our NIM. However, we are observing that since last November, US dollar interest rate and RMB interest rate grow rapidly. There are changing market competition. We are looking at the changes.
We feel that for high-quality customer, there are fierce competition in the market. For securities investment, our interest rate is increasing. However, lending rates to good corporate customers, the pricing power is in the hand of the customer. We take note that NIM is stabilizing, and NIM improvement is one of our priority, and we are trying our best to perform better than peer or equal to peer. I want to add, I want to share with you the truth before analyst. NIM is stabilizing. That is our trend. We hope our dream is that NIM can increase. But that is our dream.
Thank you, Mr. Zhang and Mr. Chen. Now, I give the floor to Hong Kong venue for the final question.
Thank you for giving me this opportunity. I am from Merrill Lynch. I want to ask you a question about asset quality.
We found out that BOC at the end of 2016, NPL reduced as compared to the mid of 2016. What is your forecast about 2017 NPL? The economy is stabilizing and the monetary policy is changing. I want to know the asset quality situation in 2017. Can we say the turning point is coming? Mr. Pan, this is your question.
Thank you. Looking at 2016 in the press conference commenced at the beginning of 2016, we mentioned that we are under great pressure for asset quality. However, we try our best through resolution measures to maintain asset quality. You take note that in 2016, asset quality, the newly increased NPL was 1.45, 9 basis point lower year-on-year. 2016 year-end NPL reduced by one basis point as compared to mid-2016 figure. But we cannot be very optimistic. It is difficult to say.
Asset quality is coming to a turning point, and we should objectively observe this situation, and we cannot reduce our caution about this issue. The economy is still under pressure of recovery, and some companies are facing difficulties. Rent reduction, rent subsidy, three, reducing will bring some pressure to asset quality. Looking at BOC's overall situation, 2016 special mention loan rate and overdue loan rate were year-on-year, seeing an increase of 0.6% and 0.19% respectively. Looking at northern eastern part of the country and western countries, manufacturing and mining industry, the risk were exposing. In 2017, asset quality are still facing some pressure. However, we are confident that we can cope with 2017's situation well, and we will actively manage our risk well. Non-performing loan asset resolution and the potential risk resolving will be our priority. We will take many measures to maintain stable asset quality. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Pan. We can have time to allow further questions, because there are many analysts in Hong Kong. Mr. Xie, can I give the final opportunity to Hong Kong? One final question. Thank you.
Thank you very much for giving me this final opportunity. My name is Jeffrey. Among Big Four, BOC non-interest income percentage was rather high. Last year, non-interest income of BOC increased very fast. However, fee and commission income absolute amount reduced by 4 percentage points, although overall non-interest income increased 24 basis points. I want to know, in 2017, can the fee and the commission income of Bank of China increase? What are the major drivers of this increase? Anybody responsible for financial management have to work very hard at a press conference like this. Thank you.
I will answer the questions about non-interest income just now.
I have just answered the question about interest income. In 2016, non-interest income was very good, CNY 179.3 billion, 37% of our operating income, 6 percentage points higher than previous year. The growth rate and the percentage contribution were growing the fastest among peers. However, you acutely found out that our fee and commission income is our shortcoming. In the latter half of 2017, we focused on fee and commission income. I want to report to the analysts here that in the latter half of 2016, we are seeing some changes. If we do not consider this business tax to VAT reform impact in the latter half of 2016, fee and commission income achieve a positive growth of 1.1% and 3.8% in Q4. So in 2017, management will continuously try to achieve a positive growth of fee and commission income.
Besides fee and commission income, investment and transactions income are the traditional advantage of Bank of China. It is a unique competitive advantage of BOC. So while seeking fee and commission income, we will also focus on investment and transactions income. Bank of China take the opportunity of the One Belt, One Road initiative of the country, also decreasing loan, merger and acquisition, structured finance, trade finance area. We will further develop our advantage and take hard efforts. The development of internet financing and credit card business, internet-based businesses, we are providing better services to our customers so as to get better return. On the third point, we will emphasize big asset management, big investment banking, and we will enhance our internal management and gradually promoting big asset management and big investment banking so as to get fee-based income from this area. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Zhang, and I also want to thank the Hong Kong venue analysts for your questions. Our final question will be reserved to Beijing venue. This gentleman, please.
Thank you. Thank you for giving me the final opportunity. I am from CITIC Securities. I have a question concerning wealth management products. At the moment, wealth management has attracted a lot of attention from investors and the regulators. Could you please share with us your 2016 performance concerning wealth management products? Also, the regulators have strengthened measures against such business, so what is your plan for the year 2017?
Let me answer your question. Let me share with you some data. By the end of 2016, our domestic wealth management products have a balance of CNY 1.51 trillion , up by 6.3% compared to the end of 2015. Among the CNY 1.51 trillion , the on-sheet wealth management products have CNY 335.3 billion , up by 6.5%. For off-sheet wealth management products, CNY 1.18 trillion , up by 6.3%.
You can see that we can draw a basic conclusion. That is, compared with the overall scale of the bank and compared with our peers, our wealth management business is growing steadily and not so fast. In terms of our investment, over 60% were invested in the bonds and the currency market tools. For wealth management products, for years, we strictly follow the rules and the requirements, and we adopt a prudent approach in risk management. Also, we watch very closely the latest regulatory requirements. In the future, we are to adopt even more stringent risk management approach. For example, we will continue to separate the off-sheet wealth management product with our own asset. We believe that this is the prerequisite for the continued growth of this business.
We do not want to use any loopholes in the current regulatory framework or find any potential ways to utilize the loopholes. We will still consider wealth management as a priority for risk management. Looking into the year 2017, we believe that the wealth management business will witness rapid growth. Overall, the country will have a sound regulatory environment. With our strict risk management approach, I am confident that wealth management in our bank will enjoy a favorable environment. We have the capacity to further strengthen our advantage and utilize our advantages in various platforms like the Luxembourg and the Hong Kong branch and Bank of China (Hong Kong). Externally, we follow the rules and the requirements, and internally, we have the strict and the prudent risk management to ensure the sound growth of our business in this aspect.
Thank you. President Chen. Thank you.
Thank you very much to all of the analysts who are present today. Also, may I thank President Chen, EVP Gao, EVP Zhang, and the CRO, Mr. Pan. I am terribly sorry that we could not take more questions because of the time limit. If you have any questions, just feel free to contact the board secretariat. Today is a milestone for us to submit to you the 2016 annual report, and we look forward to your future support. We are really grateful for your interest and support. Wish you all well. Thank you. This concludes today's meeting.