In the latest semi-annual reporting season, nine A-share listed joint-stock banks delivered notably subdued non-interest income figures: their combined non-interest revenue totaled 2616.99 billion yuan, up just 0.23% year on year.

However, equating this number directly with weak fee-based income would be misleading. For one, investment gains and fair value changes also fall under non-interest income, and their fluctuations do not move in lockstep with net fee and commission income. For another, even within fee income alone, performance across different segments has clearly diverged.

Some banks have seen wealth management-related revenue recover at a faster pace. For instance, China Minsheng Bank's agency business fees surged 64.92% in the first half, while China Merchants Bank's fund distribution fees climbed 61.40% and Ping An Bank's agency and entrusted fees rose 27.6%. Meanwhile, China Everbright Bank's agency business fees dropped 15.3% year on year.

More notably, even robust growth in wealth management does not necessarily translate into synchronized gains in overall fee income. China Minsheng Bank saw its wealth-related fee income rise 47.66% in the first half, yet due to factors such as declining bank card service fees, the bank's net fee and commission income ultimately grew only 1.28%.

Behind the mere 0.23% uptick in non-interest income across the nine banks, the warmth or chill of fee-based income is now increasingly reflected in structural shifts among specific business lines.

Six up, three down: nine listed joint-stock banks' non-interest income barely moves

Looking at the aggregate picture first, six of the nine banks posted positive non-interest income growth in the first half, while three recorded declines. China Merchants Bank generated 661.59 billion yuan in non-interest income, roughly 1.8 times that of Industrial Bank, which ranked second. The fastest growth came from Huaxia Bank, whose non-interest income rose 12.06%, although its scale was only a quarter of China Merchants Bank's.

The three banks with negative non-interest income growth were Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, China Minsheng Bank, and China Everbright Bank. Yet the reasons for their declines differ. SPDB's net non-interest income fell 9.63%, primarily dragged by a 14.30% drop in other net income (investment gains, fair value changes, etc.), while its fee income only slipped 1.92%. China Minsheng Bank's net non-interest income declined 2.58%, mainly due to investment gains falling from 9.234 billion yuan a year earlier to 5.490 billion yuan. China Everbright Bank's fee and commission income stood at 10.890 billion yuan, down 7.81%, indicating contraction within its core fee business itself.

This underscores that assessing a bank's non-interest income cannot rely solely on a single headline figure. Judging from the semi-annual report breakdown, investment gains and other non-interest items are driven by different factors than net fee and commission income. The former is more influenced by asset allocation and market conditions, while the latter more directly reflects a bank's revenue changes across wealth management, payment and settlement, custody, and bank card operations. Thus, an increase or decrease in non-interest income cannot simply be equated with parallel movements in fee income.

Agency business shows stark divergence

Further dissecting fee income reveals even clearer shifts in wealth management activities. In the first half, China Minsheng Bank's agency business fees reached 2.713 billion yuan, up 64.92% year on year, marking the bank's fastest-growing segment and driving its wealth-related fee income to 3.013 billion yuan, a 47.66% increase. China Merchants Bank's wealth management fee and commission income hit 16.192 billion yuan, up 26.53%, with wealth product distribution at 5.076 billion yuan (up 10.56%), fund distribution at 3.935 billion yuan (up 61.40%), and trust plan distribution at 2.247 billion yuan (up 43.76%).

Ping An Bank's agency and entrusted fees reached 3.986 billion yuan, up 27.6%, including 1.007 billion yuan from individual insurance agency, a 51.2% jump. Huaxia Bank's retail wealth management fees grew 23.15%.

On the flip side, China Everbright Bank's agency business fees came in at 886 million yuan, down 15.3% year on year, with its comparatively large wealth management service fees also dipping slightly and custody and other entrusted service commissions falling 7.94%.

Within the same half-year market environment, agency and wealth management-related businesses across different banks have clearly diverged. Zheshang Bank's agency and entrusted business surged 144.46% year on year, lifting its first-half fee and commission income to 5.030 billion yuan, up 61.84% — the fastest among joint-stock banks — with the 1.922 billion yuan increase almost entirely stemming from this segment. However, fee and commission expenses expanded from 815 million yuan to 2.473 billion yuan, a 203.4% rise, pushing the expense-to-income ratio from 26.2% to 49.2%. Despite revenue growing by 1.922 billion yuan, net income ultimately rose just 264 million yuan, an 11.51% increase year on year. The flip side of surging distribution business is proportionally higher channel costs, meaning growth in fee and commission income does not necessarily convert into equivalent net income gains. Beyond the revenue side, cost-side changes equally influence final results.

Wealth growth does not guarantee bank-wide fee income gains

While distribution is prominent, it is far from the whole story of fee income. Two other segments warrant attention. The first is corporate banking intermediary business. Industrial Bank's first-half fee income rose 8.61% to 14.201 billion yuan, lifting its share of total revenue to 12.89% — with payment and settlement income up 18% and custody income up 11%. Its full-scope custody intermediary income reached 2.157 billion yuan, an 11.02% increase, with asset management custody scale at 11.85 trillion yuan and public fund custody scale at 3.19 trillion yuan, ranking first in the industry for first-half additions. China CITIC Bank's public fund custody scale also crossed the 3 trillion yuan threshold by period-end.

These revenue streams are tied to client retention and asset scale rather than market swings, offering relatively higher stability. But there are limits. China Merchants Bank's custody scale was 23.58 trillion yuan, corresponding to custody commission income of 3.142 billion yuan in the first half — roughly a 1.3 basis point semi-annual fee rate on period-end assets. With a scale of over twenty trillion yuan generating just over three billion yuan in half-year revenue, such business supports the floor but cannot drive the ceiling.

The other segment is credit card fees. China Minsheng Bank's bank card service fees fell 10.41% year on year to 4.329 billion yuan, making it the bank's largest fee item — larger than its agency business, which grew 64.92%. It was precisely this line item that nearly offset all the gains from wealth fee income, leaving the bank's overall fee income up just 1.28%. China Merchants Bank's bank card fee income declined 11.73% to 6.374 billion yuan, mainly due to lower offline credit card transaction fees, dragging down its overall fee income.

Breaking it down by segment, bank fee income has three primary sources, each with its own driving logic: distribution commissions largely linked to capital market conditions, settlement and custody tied to client asset retention scale, and credit card fees depending on household consumption vitality and fee-pricing rules. These three categories have distinct cyclical profiles, and banks with more balanced revenue structures tend to demonstrate greater resilience in fee income across cycles.