---
endpoint: analytics
pattern: Financial Services
status: done
latency_ms: 149537
conversation_id: 0168b6bd-63ef-41d1-8063-02127878c2b9
citations: 8
created: 2026-05-31 20:02:41Z
---

# What is CCB’s core business franchise and the key components of its operating model?

# CCB (939 HK / 601939 CH) — Core Business Franchise & Operating Model

China Construction Bank Corporation is one of the "Big 4" PRC state-owned commercial banks. Its franchise is built around a four-segment business mix anchored by a market-leading personal finance (retail) engine and a large corporate-finance book serving China's infrastructure, government and SOE economy [1][2]. Coverage is currently O-PF rated at CLSA with current price HK$7.30 and target HK$6.20 (29-trading-day snapshot as of 6 Jun 2025) [9].

## 1. Core Business Franchise — Four Reporting Segments

CCB reports under four management segments. The 2024 segment composition is set out below [1][2][3]:

| Segment | 2024 Operating Income (RMB mn) | 2024 PBT (RMB mn) | % of Group PBT |
|---|---|---|---|
| **Personal finance business** | 359,413 | 173,489 | 45.1% |
| **Corporate finance business** | 227,501 | 101,144 | 26.3% |
| **Treasury & asset management** | 118,970 | 102,009 | 26.5% |
| **Others (incl. overseas)** | 22,686 | 7,735 | 2.0% |
| **Group total** | **728,570** | **384,377** | 100% |

Key observations:
- **Retail is the profit engine.** Personal finance contributes the largest single share of operating income (~49% of group) and ~45% of group PBT — the structural skew that distinguishes CCB from peers like BOC and ABC where corporate is relatively larger [3].
- **Operating income contracted YoY in 2024** across the three main franchises (group −2.3% from RMB 745.6bn in 2023 to RMB 728.6bn in 2024), but PBT was largely preserved at RMB 384.4bn (vs RMB 389.4bn in 2023) thanks to lower credit-impairment losses in corporate finance (down from RMB 77bn to RMB 37bn) [3].
- **Treasury is high-margin / low-opex.** Treasury & asset management generated RMB 119bn operating income against only RMB 14bn of operating expense — a ~86% pre-impairment profit margin, versus ~31% for personal finance and ~61% for corporate finance [3].

### 1.1 Personal Finance Business (the dominant franchise)
Products and services include personal loans, deposit taking and wealth management, card business, remittance services and agency services [1]. Operationally, the segment is run across seven sub-business lines: Customer Operation, Personal Credit, Personal Payments, Wealth Management, Private Banking, Rural Revitalisation, Housing Rental and the Entrusted Housing Finance Business [2]. Private banking has been a deliberate scale-up — AUM of private banking customers reached RMB 1,348.5bn at end-2018 (up 16.3% YoY), with 127,211 private banking customers [8]. The Entrusted Housing Finance Business gives CCB a distinctive policy-linked franchise: it administers state Housing Provident Fund flows, holding RMB 799.9bn of housing-fund deposits and RMB 2,210.3bn of personal provident housing-fund loans at end-2018 [8] — a legacy tie to CCB's original mandate as the construction-finance bank.

### 1.2 Corporate Finance Business
Provides a full corporate suite to corporates, government agencies and financial institutions: corporate loans, trade financing, deposit taking and wealth management, agency services, financial consulting and advisory, cash management, remittance and settlement, guarantee services, and investment banking [1]. Operationally split into Customer Operation, Corporate Credit, Institutional Business, Investment Banking, International Business, and Settlement & Cash Management [2].

### 1.3 Treasury & Asset Management Business
Houses the Group's treasury operations: inter-bank deposit/placement, repo/reverse-repo, debt-securities investing, derivatives and FX trading for own account, customer-driven derivatives / FX / precious-metals / custody businesses, plus management of group liquidity and debt-securities issuance [1]. Operating units: Financial Market Business, Asset Management Business, Financial Institutional Business, and Asset Custody [2].

### 1.4 Others / Overseas Commercial Banking
Captures equity investments and overseas commercial banks [1]. CCB's Hong Kong franchise is run as a fully-fledged platform spanning the Hong Kong Branch, CCB (Asia) and CCB International, covering wholesale banking, retail banking and investment banking — the consolidation completed in September 2007 after the acquisition of Bank of America (Asia) [6].

## 2. Operating Model — Key Components

### 2.1 Domestic geographic operating model
CCB reports management accounts across **seven domestic regions plus Head Office and Overseas**: Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, Bohai Rim, Central, Western, Northeastern, Head Office, and Overseas [5]. Net interest income is concentrated in the Yangtze, Central and Western regions, with Head Office acting as the principal funds-transfer hub (the line shows large internal-funding offsets, e.g., a net interest income line of RMB 317.4bn external offset by RMB −286.2bn internal allocation in 2023) [5] — illustrating an internal funds-transfer-pricing model that re-allocates head-office-raised funding to branch regions.

### 2.2 Workforce composition (the human operating layer)
At end-2024 the Group employed **376,847 staff** (46.96% male, 53.04% female), with the largest functional buckets being [4]:
- Personal banking: **43,018** (11.42%)
- Corporate banking: **30,979** (8.22%)
- Technology & channel operation: **29,752** (7.89%)
- Risk management: **19,509** (5.18%)
- Management: **11,017** (2.92%)
- Treasury & asset management: **2,379** (0.63%)

The headcount mix reinforces that retail is the dominant customer-facing operating function (~40% more personal-banking staff than corporate), while the c.30k tech & channel population evidences the digital-transformation investment.

### 2.3 Functional operating pillars surrounding the four segments
The 2024 Annual Report's structural table of contents identifies five additional operating pillars that wrap around the four reporting segments [2]:
- **Overseas Commercial Banking Business** — international branches and subsidiaries.
- **Integrated Operation Subsidiaries** — non-bank subsidiaries (insurance, leasing, trust, fund mgmt, futures, pension, investment banking arms).
- **Fintech & Channel Operation** — digital channels and tech build-out.
- **Risk Management** functions reporting through Board-level committees.
- **Customer Operation** sub-pillars inside both corporate and personal segments — i.e. the bank organises by customer relationship-ownership, not purely by product.

### 2.4 Retail transformation strategy (operating philosophy)
Since the late 2010s management has explicitly prioritised retail and run an integration philosophy described as **"Opening and Sharing, Mutually Beneficial Value Creation, Digital Interconnection and Customer-centric"**, driving a digitalised, AI-assisted, internet-based transformation of retail [7]. The model leverages star-rated services, segmented customer management, differentiated private/high-end propositions, the "Yunongtong" inclusive-finance / rural service model (~150k service outlets), and personal comprehensive membership-point services [7]. This is the strategic anchor that has produced the personal-finance dominance visible in the 2024 segment P&L [3].

### 2.5 Governance & risk operating spine
The organisational structure threads from the Shareholders' General Meeting through the Board → Risk Management Committee → Asset and Liability and Cost Control Committee, which sits above the operational executive offices: Finance & Accounting, Human Resources, Equity & Investment Management, Risk Management, Credit Management, Credit Approval, Audit, and Internal Control & Compliance [4]. Risk management headcount of ~19.5k is a material operating component — sized roughly in line with the corporate-banking customer-facing function [4].

## 3. Sources / CLSA View on the Franchise

CLSA's 6 Jun 2025 "China banks (Transfer of coverage)" note simply transferred CCB-H (939) and CCB-A (601939) coverage to Ding Luo at the existing ratings — **O-PF on both lines** with target prices of HK$6.20 (vs HK$7.30 spot) and RMB 8.50 (vs RMB 9.00 spot) respectively [9]. Note this is an administrative coverage transfer, not a fundamental thesis update; for franchise-economics analysis the primary evidence is CCB's own segment disclosure in the 2024 Annual Report [1][2][3].

---
**Sources**
[1] China Construction Bank — Annual Report 2024 (segment definitions, financial-statement note 57)
[2] China Construction Bank — Annual Report 2024 (Business Review chapter — segment composition table & sub-business pillars)
[3] China Construction Bank — Annual Report 2024 (segment P&L table for FY2024 and FY2023)
[4] China Construction Bank — Annual Report 2024 (employee composition & organisational structure)
[5] China Construction Bank — Annual Report 2024 (geographical segment table — FY2023)
[6] China Construction Bank — Annual Report 2007 (Hong Kong consolidation: HK Branch + CCB Asia + CCB International)
[7] China Construction Bank — Annual Report 2018 (Feature article: Retail Transformation)
[8] China Construction Bank — Annual Report 2018 (Private banking AUM & Entrusted Housing Finance metrics)
[9] CLSA — China banks (Transfer of coverage) — 6 Jun 2025 — 607961079LinqAlpha.PDF (current rating & target price for 939 HK / 601939 CH)

## Citations

- [1] **China Construction Bank Corporation annual_report 2025-04-02** · external
- [2] **China Construction Bank Corporation annual_report 2025-04-02** · external
- [3] **China Construction Bank Corporation annual_report 2025-04-02** · external
- [4] **China Construction Bank Corporation annual_report 2025-04-02** · external
- [5] **China Construction Bank Corporation annual_report 2025-04-02** · external
- [6] **China Construction Bank Corporation, Q4 2007 Report** · external
- [7] **China Construction Bank Corporation, H2 2018 Report** · external
- [8] **China Construction Bank Corporation, H2 2018 Report** · external

