Leading banks in China 2023, based on total assets

In 2023, the value of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China's assets amounted to 6.12 trillion U.S. dollars. The bank was not only the largest bank in China but also the largest bank in the world. When the bank went public in Hong Kong, it was the most valuable IPO in history at the time.

Banking industry in China

As one of the world’s largest players, the Chinese banking industry documented an increase in total assets, reaching around 336 trillion yuan in 2021. Although the banking sector in China developed as a state-owned and policy-driven industry in the early opening up and reforming period , today, it has evolved into a more diversified and competitive market. Most of the leading state-owned banks, such as the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, were restructured into joint-stock companies in the early 2000s while a growing body of commercial banks started their operations on a regional level. In addition, more and more banks specialize in segmented areas. For instance, Ping An Bank grew the fastest as a private banking service provider partly due to synergies with its well-established insurance business. Furthermore, the rapid-expanding internet economy allowed for the rise of non-physical banks like WeBank, which is backed by Tencent and China Zheshang Bank.

A thriving yet chaotic digital payments market

China’s financial industry is an early adopter of new technologies and innovations, and the fintech-empowered digital payments market in China is one of the fiercest battlefields in this sector. Companies with the most impressive performances are the third-party payment service operators backed by internet tycoons such as WeChat Pay and Alipay. Both had a user base of over one billion as of 2020. Confronted with the increasing threat of non-bank channel payments, traditional commercial banks have been pushing forward their digitalization transition. As of September 2021, monthly active app users of the Industrial and Commercial Bank amounted to almost 68.5 million.