On the evening of August 29th, Changsha Bank (601577.SH) released its semi-annual report for 2024.

In the first half of the year, the bank, with its prudent business strategy, continued to maintain a positive development trend characterized by steady progress and quality improvement, with its profitability steadily improving, delivering a solid "report card".

During the first half of the year, the bank's two distinctive businesses, rural finance and retail finance, saw continuous improvement in development quality and efficiency.

It also increased its support for inclusive finance, green finance, and technology finance, and other real economy sectors, writing an excellent "answer sheet" to support high-quality economic development in the region.

Steady and Far-reaching: Steady Improvement in Operational Benefits and Steady Growth in Asset Scale.

In the first half of 2024, Changsha Bank's operating indicators continued to grow, and its operational foundation was continuously strengthened, laying a solid foundation for building a modern ecological bank driven by innovation, with distinctive features and leading value.

The bank achieved operating income of 13.042 billion yuan, an increase of 0.419 billion yuan year-on-year, an increase of 3.32%, of which net non-interest income was 3.212 billion yuan, an increase of 17.50% year-on-year, the revenue structure continued to optimize, and the risk resistance continued to strengthen; the net profit attributable to the parent company was 4.121 billion yuan, an increase of 0.159 billion yuan year-on-year, an increase of 4.01%, and the operational benefits continued to improve steadily.

As of the end of June, Changsha Bank's total assets were 1,096.922 billion yuan, an increase of 7.54% from the end of last year, and the steady growth in asset scale was mainly due to the bank's increased credit allocation, with the balance of loans and advances accounting for the total assets increased from 46.45% at the end of last year to 47.19%; the total loan balance was 533.591 billion yuan, an increase of 9.25% from the end of last year; the total deposit balance was 682.558 billion yuan, an increase of 3.60% from the end of last year, and the asset scale continued to grow.

At present, the narrowing of net interest margins has become one of the common challenges faced by the banking industry.

In the first half of 2024, under the guidance of the strategy, the bank continued to refine its management and continued to place "stabilizing net interest margins" in a prominent and important position.

The net interest margin in the first half of the year remained stable at 2.12%.

Thanks to the continuous release of the deposit rate marketization adjustment mechanism, and strengthening the management of liability limits, and implementing differentiated pricing strategies, Changsha Bank's deposit cost pressure in the first half of the year was effectively alleviated.

As of the end of June, the bank's deposit interest rate decreased by 0.16 percentage points year-on-year to 1.88%, effectively alleviating the narrowing of net interest margins; the average interest rate for corporate customer deposits was 1.55%, a decrease of 0.27 percentage points year-on-year; the average interest rate for personal customer deposits was 2.18%, a decrease of 0.10 percentage points year-on-year.

As of the end of June, the bank's non-performing loan ratio was 1.16%, the provision coverage ratio was 312.76%, maintaining a better level in the industry; the loan-to-deposit ratio was 3.62%, an increase of 0.02 percentage points from the end of last year, and the asset quality remained stable.

In terms of capital adequacy, Changsha Bank's capital adequacy ratio, tier 1 capital adequacy ratio, and core tier 1 capital adequacy ratio were 13.06%, 10.64%, and 9.70%, respectively, an increase of 0.02 percentage points, 0.07 percentage points, and 0.11 percentage points from the end of last year, respectively, and all three capital adequacy indicators have improved, with a good level of capital adequacy.

Adhering to characteristics: solid rural counties + refined retail to support the dual improvement of the real economy.

In the first half of this year, Changsha Bank adhered to the characteristic strategic layout, accurately positioned, and created differentiated and characteristic competitive advantages.

The two distinctive businesses of retail finance and rural finance developed rapidly.

At the same time, the bank continued to increase credit support in key areas such as technology finance and green finance, promoting the average scale of corporate loans to grow by 20.47% year-on-year, and effectively supporting the quality and efficiency of the real economy.

In the first half of the year, the bank actively improved the quality and efficiency of rural financial services, and promoted the high-quality development of rural finance.

As of the end of June, the bank's rural deposit balance was 215.103 billion yuan, an increase of 10.529 billion yuan from the end of last year, an increase of 5.15%; the rural loan balance was 193.948 billion yuan, an increase of 24.247 billion yuan from the end of last year, an increase of 14.29%, rural deposits and rural loans accounted for 31.5% and 36.3% of the total bank deposits and loans, respectively; financing for high-standard farmland construction projects exceeded 1.3 billion yuan, loans to leading talents were 75.91 million yuan; the "Xiangnong Quick Loan" and "Xiangcun Quick Loan" product credit amount reached 10.61 billion yuan, and the loan balance was 4.49 billion yuan.

Retail finance, as a distinctive business card of Changsha Bank, still performed well in the first half of this year.

As of the end of June, the bank's personal deposit balance was 359.775 billion yuan, an increase of 23.682 billion yuan from the end of last year, an increase of 7.05%.

The personal loan balance was 188.267 billion yuan, an increase of 3.495 billion yuan from the end of last year, an increase of 1.89%, the retail customer asset management scale (AUM) reached 427.692 billion yuan, an increase of 27.515 billion yuan from the end of last year, an increase of 6.88%, the number of retail customers reached 18.0599 million, an increase of 362,000 households from the end of last year, an increase of 2.05%.

Changsha Bank precisely focused on personal consumer loans, refined high-quality customer groups, cultivated specific consumer scene customer groups, and deepened the transformation and development of retail business.

As of the end of June, the bank's personal consumer loan balance was 71.963 billion yuan, an increase of 4.397 billion yuan from the end of last year, an increase of 6.51%; the personal business loan balance was 29.187 billion yuan, an increase of 1.442 billion yuan from the end of last year, an increase of 5.20%.

In terms of corporate business, Changsha Bank organically combined the service of the real economy with business goals, and continued to promote the high-quality development of corporate business.

As of the end of June, the bank's corporate loan balance was 339.877 billion yuan, an increase of 17.05% from the end of last year; the corporate deposit balance was 296.790 billion yuan, an increase of 1.94% from the end of last year; the number of corporate customers was 422,600, an increase of 1.38% from the end of last year; the number of customers served in the industrial chain upstream and downstream was 4,233, an increase of 159 from the beginning of the year, an increase of 3.90%, supporting 93 provincial and municipal key projects, and newly added credit funds of 7.33 billion yuan, an increase of 41.15% year-on-year.

In the first half of this year, the bank continued to tilt credit resources to key areas of the real economy such as small and micro enterprises, and increased credit allocation in the field of small and micro enterprises through measures such as increasing assessment guidance and interest subsidy policies.

As of the end of June, the bank's inclusive small and micro enterprise loan balance was 63.617 billion yuan, an increase of 5.359 billion yuan from the end of last year, an increase of 9.20%; the number of inclusive small and micro enterprise loans was 72,452, an increase of 493 from the end of last year.

As of the end of June, the bank's technology finance loan balance and green finance loan balance were 41.56 billion yuan and 51.806 billion yuan, respectively, an increase of 10.13% and 20.75% from the end of last year, respectively, both achieving double-digit growth.

Looking forward to the second half of the year, the bank will focus on the development concept of "stabilizing progress, promoting stability through progress, and establishing before breaking", closely follow the "134568" strategic goals, promote the continuous growth of operating indicators and the continuous strengthening of the operating foundation, continuously release new development momentum, and continuously improve the intrinsic value with stable performance, to repay the vast shareholders and investors.