Amid the wave of maturing deposits, the six major state-owned banks have secured an incremental deposit of more than 5 trillion yuan.

In the first half of 2026, the average annualized cost rate of personal time deposits of the six major state-owned banks generally declined compared with the same period in 2025, with a decrease ranging from 33 to 49 basis points

Will there be a "deposit relocation" situation after residents' deposits mature? A number of senior bank executives responded to this market hotspot at the recently held performance briefing. "In the first half of the year, the maturing funds of personal time deposits of our bank were generally well retained, with the retention rate remaining above 90%," said Tang Shuo, Vice President of China Construction Bank (601939.SH).

Wang Wenjin, Vice President of Agricultural Bank of China (601288.SH), also stated that as of the end of the first half of 2026, the bank's full-caliber average daily deposit balance reached 39.59 trillion yuan, with a new increase of 3.67 trillion yuan and a growth rate of 10.2%. The average daily domestic personal deposit balance was 21.28 trillion yuan, accounting for 64.5% of all domestic deposits, with a new increase of 1.56 trillion yuan.

According to the sorting of the 2026 semi-annual reports by *Caijing*, compared with the same period in 2025, the total customer deposits of the six major state-owned banks are all on the rise. Among them, from January to June 2026, the average balance of personal time deposits of the six major banks reached 61.72 trillion yuan, an increase of more than 5 trillion yuan year-on-year.

It is worth noting that the extra increase of more than 5 trillion yuan in personal time deposits has not pushed up the interest payment cost of large state-owned banks, which has decreased instead of increasing. According to the sorting of *Caijing*, except for Bank of China (601988.SH) which did not release relevant data, the total interest expenditure on personal time deposits of the other five large state-owned banks decreased by 59.2 billion yuan in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025.

Hua Tai Securities previously estimated that the maturing scale of time deposits with a term of more than 1 year in 2026 is about 50 trillion yuan, of which the maturing volumes of 2-year and 3-year deposits both exceed 20 trillion yuan, and the maturing volume of 5-year deposits ranges from 5 trillion yuan to 6 trillion yuan.

"From this perspective, large state-owned banks have not only stabilized the scale of personal deposits on the liability side, but also effectively achieved qualitative improvement. By reasonably controlling the scale of high-cost deposits, the interest payment cost can be reduced," said an industry analyst.

Stable Fund Retention: New Increase of Personal Time Deposits Exceeds 5 Trillion Yuan

Large state-owned banks are the ballast stone of the banking industry. This positioning is not only reflected on the asset side, but also prominently demonstrated on the liability side. When large state-owned banks are stable, the finance will be stable.

According to the sorting of the 2026 semi-annual reports by *Caijing*, compared with the same period in 2025, the total customer deposits of the six major banks are all on the rise.

Personal time deposits and residents' time deposits are highly overlapping. Data shows that from January to June 2026, the average balance of personal time deposits of the six major banks reached 61.72 trillion yuan, an increase of 5.34 trillion yuan or a growth rate of 9.5% compared with 56.38 trillion yuan in the same period of 2025.

The 2026 semi-annual report of Agricultural Bank of China shows that the full-caliber average daily deposit balance is 39.59 trillion yuan, with a new increase of 3.67 trillion yuan and a growth rate of 10.2%; the average daily domestic personal deposit balance is 21.28 trillion yuan, accounting for 64.5% of all domestic deposits, with a new increase of 1.56 trillion yuan. Among them, the average balance of personal time deposits is 13.99 trillion yuan, with a new increase of 1.45 trillion yuan and a growth rate of 11.56%.

Tang Shuo revealed that in the first half of the year, the maturing funds of personal time deposits of China Construction Bank were generally well retained, with the retention rate remaining above 90%. The personal customer AUM (Asset Under Management) exceeded 24 trillion yuan, an increase of 1.04 trillion yuan compared with the end of 2025, with diversified growth in the scale of deposits, funds, insurance, precious metals and other categories.

Comparison of the average balance of personal time deposits of large state-owned banks

(Source: 2026 semi-annual reports of large state-owned banks; AI-assisted mapping)

Strengthening the adaptive sales of product portfolios such as large-denomination certificates of deposit and consignment financial products is also an effective way for commercial banks to improve the renewal level and effectively promote the internal circulation of funds. In November 2025, large state-owned banks successively removed 5-year large-denomination certificates of deposit from their shelves. However, in July 2026, large state-owned banks restarted the issuance of 5-year large-denomination certificates of deposit.

An industry analyst once told *Caijing* that the direct trigger for the restart of 5-year large-denomination certificates of deposit is the peak maturity of time deposits in 2026. A large number of high-interest 3-year certificates of deposit issued in the early years matured intensively, and banks are facing huge pressure to retain deposits. The essence of the above action is to use long-term products to retain existing deposits and ease the duration mismatch pressure brought by the short-termization of deposits.

Facing the low interest rate environment, China Construction Bank proposed to follow the changing trend of residents' balance sheets, clarify the goal of "striving to build the primary bank for retail customers", and focus on realizing adaptive services for all customers, full life cycle and full-function scenarios. Tang Shuo further explained that the focus is to improve the coverage of "primary settlement", "primary investment" and "primary financing": based on the integrated operation of public and private businesses, centering on the capital chain of "expanding B-end scenarios - increasing C-end sign-ups", accelerate the construction and promotion of the "circle-chain-group" service mode to build a "primary settlement" ecosystem; grasp the trend of wealth management, continue to work hard on "professionalism, inclusiveness and adaptability" to promote diversified growth of AUM; centering on the financing needs of personal customers, continue to enrich the "housing - consumption - operation" credit product and service system.

"Looking forward to the whole year, the monetary policy will continue the general tone of moderate easing, and the liquidity of the whole market will remain reasonably abundant, which brings space for expanding the total personal funds. It is expected that the total personal funds of our bank will maintain steady growth. With more diversified allocation of residents' financial assets, investment and financial management are expected to maintain rapid growth, and personal deposits will maintain sound growth," Tang Shuo said.

Liability Side Improvement: Total Interest Payment of the Five Major Banks Decreased by 59.2 Billion Yuan

With the repricing of maturing deposits and a good maturity retention rate, the liability-side cost of commercial banks further decreased in the first half of the year.

According to the sorting of *Caijing*, except for Bank of China (the bank did not release the value of personal time deposit expenditure, and its interest expenditure on absorbed deposits in the first half of the year was 180.75 billion yuan, down 14.15%), the total interest expenditure on personal time deposits of the other five large state-owned banks reached 433.436 billion yuan in the first half of 2026, compared with 492.645 billion yuan in the same period of 2025, a decrease of 59.2 billion yuan.

Comparison of interest expenditure on personal time deposits of the five large state-owned banks

(Source: 2026 semi-annual reports of large state-owned banks; AI-assisted mapping)

The reason for the change in interest expenditure on personal time deposits lies in the sharp decline of the average annualized cost rate, which is the core quantitative indicator for financial institutions to carry out capital cost control.

The semi-annual reports of the six major banks show that in the first half of 2026, the average annualized cost rate of personal time deposits of the six major state-owned banks generally declined compared with the same period in 2025, with a decrease ranging from 33 to 49 basis points (1 basis point = 0.01%).

Among them, Bank of Communications (601328.SH), which saw the largest decline in the average annualized cost rate of personal time deposits, dropped from 2.51% in the same period of 2025 to 2.02% from January to June 2026. Other data of the bank show that in the first half of 2026, the AUM scale of personal customers of domestic branches reached 6.32 trillion yuan, an increase of 5.79% compared with the end of 2025. The balance of personal deposits was 4.31 trillion yuan, an increase of 6.08% compared with the end of 2025. The average annualized cost rate of personal deposits decreased by 37 basis points year-on-year.

Another source from a large state-owned bank said, "In the repricing cycle, especially for 3-year deposits, the maximum decline of the listed interest rate can reach 135 basis points. In this context, the deposit interest payment rate of our bank in the first half of the year decreased significantly compared with 2025."

Data from the National Administration of Financial Regulation shows that the net interest margin of commercial banks in the second quarter of 2026 was 1.41%, up 1 basis point quarter-on-quarter. Among them, the net interest margin of large state-owned banks, joint-stock banks, city commercial banks and rural commercial banks changed by 2 basis points, 0 basis point, 2 basis points and 1 basis point quarter-on-quarter to 1.31%, 1.54%, 1.40% and 1.59% respectively.

"The net interest margin of the banking industry has ended the continuous unilateral narrowing for many years and achieved stabilization. The core support behind this is not the rise of asset-side yield, but the liability-side dividend brought by the concentrated maturity and repricing of time deposits, which hedges the downward pressure on the yield of interest-earning assets," said an industry insider. With the continuous deepening of the repricing process of existing high-cost time deposits, the deposit interest payment rate of banks is expected to continue to decline steadily in the second half of the year, and the net interest margin of the banking industry is expected to remain stable within the year.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Caijing Mayflower" (ID: Caijing-MayFlower), written by Chen Hongjie, edited by Zhang Yingxin, and published by 36Kr with authorization.