In 2024, the total scale of domestic asset management in China increased by 10.4% year-on-year, reaching a new high of 154 trillion yuan. This significant growth is part of a broader trend, as the global stock market’s volatile upward movement drove the overall asset management scale to increase by 12.0% compared to the previous year, reaching 128 trillion US dollars. China’s financial market has shown a stable development trend, contributing to this growth.
A recent report titled “China Asset Management Market (2024-2025),” released by China Everbright Bank and Everbright Wealth Management, highlights these developments. The report indicates that changes in residents’ asset allocation behavior have led to an increasing importance of financial assets in their overall asset structure. In terms of incremental contributions, financial assets reached a contribution ratio of 54.6% in 2021, surpassing that of non-financial assets. By 2024, this ratio further increased to 104%, marking the first time since 2005 that it has exceeded 100%. In terms of existing assets, the proportion of financial assets among residents’ total assets reached 47.6% last year, a cumulative increase of 6.3 percentage points compared to 2018.
The structure of financial assets reveals that residents’ risk appetite remains relatively low. Deposits, insurance, and bank wealth management products continue to contribute significantly to the asset mix. In 2024, time deposits, private equity, cash and current accounts, and non-cash asset management products accounted for 33.6%, 19.9%, 14.6%, and 12.7% of Chinese residents’ financial assets, respectively. Since 2022, the combined incremental contribution of low-risk products has remained above 50%, reaching 64.8% in 2022 and 58.4% in 2023, with a slight decline to 51.3% in 2024.
International market experience suggests that during periods of low interest rates, residents in countries like Japan, Germany, the UK, and the US tend to increase their allocation to risky assets. Similarly, Chinese residents are showing signs of seeking higher-yield assets. The incremental contribution of low-risk products dropped from 58.4% in 2023 to 51.3% in 2024, while the contribution of risky assets such as stocks, non-monetary funds, and trusts is on the rise.
Residents’ allocation behavior also shows differentiation. The recovery of the capital market and divergent future expectations have led residents to diversify into riskier assets for higher returns. Even without direct allocation to risky assets, there is a trend of asset activation, with the increment of demand deposits increasing by 4.8 percentage points in 2024 compared to 2023, reaching 6.7%.
A questionnaire survey conducted by the People’s Bank of China in the fourth quarter of last year, targeting 20,000 urban depositors in 50 cities, revealed that 24.9% of residents tended to “consume more,” up 0.6 percentage points from the previous quarter. The proportion of those who preferred to “save more” decreased to 61.4%, down 2.6 percentage points, while those inclined to “invest more” increased to 13.6%, up 2.0 percentage points. Among investors, the proportion of those intending to “invest in stocks” rose to 17.5%, up 4.2 percentage points.
In the long term, the trend of Chinese residents increasing their allocation to equity and asset management products remains unchanged. The specific channels for this allocation, whether through insurance and pensions, direct stock purchases, various asset management products, or investment advisory institutions, will be clarified by future market performance and policy frameworks.
The report suggests that asset management institutions should enrich their capacity-building paths, draw on domestic and international experiences, explore comprehensive platform operations, practice multi-asset and multi-strategy investment models, seize index development trends, optimize elderly care financial services, and strive to create long-term, sustainable investment returns for investors. This approach will support national strategies and write a new chapter of high-quality development for China’s asset management industry.
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