The Eve of the 40 Trillion Publicly Offered Fund Market

The public offering fund industry is ushering in a historic watershed.

This massive change has nothing to do with the expansion of product quantity or the slight rise of market size, but the inherent pattern that has dominated the public fund consignment market for many years has been completely subverted.

The latest list of top 100 fund sales institutions by public offering fund holding scale in the first half of 2026 disclosed by the Asset Management Association of China shows that by the end of June, the non-monetary fund holding scale of the top 100 institutions reached 13.79 trillion yuan, up 17.88% from the end of 2025; the holding scale of equity funds stood at 7.06 trillion yuan, up 17.81%; the holding scale of equity index funds hit 2.94 trillion yuan, with an increase of 21.91%.

Among them, banks lost their position as the largest channel for public fund consignment for the first time. The non-monetary fund holding scale of third-party and insurance institutions reached 5.40 trillion yuan, exceeding the 5.33 trillion yuan of the bank channel; the market share of the former rose to 39.18%, while that of banks dropped to 38.67%. Securities firms continued to take the third place with 3.05 trillion yuan and a market share of 22.15%.

This seems to be only a ranking change on a list, but if we extend the time horizon, we will find that it is more like a power migration in the wealth management industry.

In the past, fund sales relied on outlets, customer managers and product shelves; now, more and more competition has shifted to traffic, content, investment research, index tools and asset allocation.

The fund industry is moving from the stage of "who can sell out funds" to the stage of "who can keep customers in their accounts for a long time".

Third-party sales institutions redefine "channels"

In the first half of 2026, the A-share market provided a sufficiently large test field for the fund sales industry.

The Shanghai Composite Index rose by 3.16%, the Shenzhen Component Index by 19.82%, the ChiNext Index by 35.58%, and the Sci-Tech Innovation Composite Index even increased by 53.99%. Meanwhile, the total trading volume of A-shares in the first half of the year reached 317.53 trillion yuan, with an average daily trading volume of 2.74 trillion yuan, 97% higher than the same period last year.

This is a typical structural bull market.

The technology growth sector has become the most prominent capital gathering place, and the total scale of public offering funds has also risen all the way. By the end of June, the net asset value of public offering funds in the whole market reached 39.67 trillion yuan, only one step away from 40 trillion yuan.

This time, what is most noteworthy is not how many funds banks have sold, but a number that was hard to imagine in the past: an independent fund sales institution has already held more than 2 trillion yuan of non-monetary funds.

By the end of June, the non-monetary fund holding scale of Ant Fund reached 2208.4 billion yuan, ranking firmly first in the industry; China Merchants Bank ranked second with 1580.8 billion yuan; TianTian Fund ranked third with 883.5 billion yuan.

In a sense, Ant Fund is no longer a "third-party sales institution" in the traditional sense, and it is evolving into a giant wealth management entry.

More importantly, this leading position does not only exist in a single category.

Judging from the industry list, Ant Fund takes the top positions in the holding scale of non-monetary funds, equity funds and equity index funds at the same time.

Behind this lies a very important change: the core competitiveness of fund sales is shifting from "shelves" to "scenarios".

In the past, if an investor wanted to buy funds, the path might be to walk into a bank outlet, find a customer manager, learn about the products, and then complete the subscription.

Today, this path has been compressed into another form: open the App - view content - compare products - learn about indexes - check positions - complete the transaction.

The physical distance in between has disappeared.

Once the purchase behavior enters the online scenario, the two assets that banks used to rely most on, outlets and customer managers, no longer have absolute advantages.

This is also why the 2208.4 billion yuan of Ant Fund is worth observing separately: it does not simply "move" the bank's sales to the internet platform, but changes the way customers access funds.

Banks are losing the "entry"

In contrast, although the bank channel has ceded the first position as a whole, the fund business of some banks is still growing rapidly, and China Merchants Bank is the most typical example.

In the first half of 2026, the agency sales of non-monetary public offering funds of China Merchants Bank reached 486.761 billion yuan, up 82.73% year on year; the agency fund income was 3.935 billion yuan, up 61.40% year on year. At the same time, China Merchants Bank continued to promote the TREE asset allocation service system. By the end of June, the number of customers receiving asset allocation services under this system had reached 12.5771 million.

Therefore, if we only look at the "sales volume", banks are still a very powerful force.

The problem is that the advantages of banks are changing. In the past, the advantage of banks was "I have customers"; now, banks need to answer: "Why do customers still buy funds through my channel?"

This is not an easy question to answer. Because internet platforms are turning fund sales from a single transaction into a continuous content consumption.

Investors can see market hotspots, compare different indexes, check fund rankings, conduct position diagnosis, and receive post-investment companionship.

Banks have to re-prove their value.

As a result, a very interesting phenomenon has emerged: banks are beginning to transform from "selling funds" to "selecting funds".

For example, China Merchants Bank further emphasized multi-asset and multi-strategy allocation and customer holding experience in its semi-annual report; China CITIC Bank is also promoting portfolios of different strategies, with more emphasis on low-to-medium volatility fixed income plus products, equity funds, index products and customer profit experience.

This means that banks are actively making up for the shortcomings that internet platforms used to have - professional capabilities; while internet platforms are constantly strengthening their asset allocation capabilities.

The two sides are moving closer to each other's territory.

This may be the part that really deserves attention in this round of consignment pattern changes.

After all, if it is only that internet platforms have taken away several trillion yuan of fund holdings from banks, it is just a channel substitution.

But if internet platforms start to provide asset allocation and banks start to provide online content and intelligent investment advisory, the industry competition will no longer be "banks VS internet", but whoever is closer to the investor's wallet will have more opportunities to grasp the pricing power of wealth management.

Securities firms bet on another card

If internet platforms have taken the entry of fund sales and banks have kept the basic base of customers, then securities firms are keeping another increasingly important asset - index funds.

In the first half of 2026, 56 securities firms entered the top 100 list, the largest number among the three types of channels.

The non-monetary fund holding scale of the 56 securities firms reached 3.05 trillion yuan, up 17.81% year on year, which is basically consistent with the overall growth rate of 17.88% of the top 100. More critically, securities firms still have obvious advantages in equity index funds. Their holding scale of equity index funds reached 1.53 trillion yuan, accounting for 52.09% of the total holding scale of such funds of the top 100 institutions.

This is a position that neither banks nor internet platforms can easily replicate.

The reason is very simple.

ETFs and equity index funds themselves are the combination of capital market trading capabilities, research capabilities and investor service capabilities, and securities firms happen to have these infrastructures.

Therefore, securities firms did not exit in this channel reshuffle. On the contrary, they are transforming their competition logic from "selling funds" to "selling tools".

More importantly, this transformation has begun to be reflected in the income side. In the first half of 2026, 42 listed securities firms realized income of 10.287 billion yuan from consigned financial products, up 84.75% year on year. Among them, CITIC Securities realized 1.603 billion yuan, China International Capital Corporation 1.046 billion yuan, and GF Securities, Guotai Haitong, CITIC Construction Investment, Guosen Securities and Huatai Securities all exceeded 600 million yuan.

This shows that the wealth management transformation of securities firms has begun to show a very important change: they no longer only pursue the holding scale, but start to pursue the quality of income.

The change of GF Securities is particularly representative. The company clearly proposed in its 2026 semi-annual report to promote the transformation of product sales from traditional consignment to "solution-oriented, asset allocation-oriented, and buy-side investment advisory-oriented" driven by research. By the end of June, the company's consigned financial product holding scale exceeded 450 billion yuan, up about 22.07% from the end of last year, and the number of licensed investment advisors exceeded 4900.

The answer to the future of the whole industry is actually hidden in this sentence.

Research answers why to buy; allocation answers what to buy; investment advisory answers what to do after buying.

In the past, fund consignment only solved the first action, and the future wealth management must solve the complete life cycle.

"Selling products" is getting less and less valuable

If you take apart this top 100 list, you will find a very interesting logic.

Where do third-party institutions win? They win in traffic, scenarios and online operation.

Where are banks strong? They are strong in customer base, asset precipitation and comprehensive financial services.

Where are securities firms strong? They are strong in ETF, trading and investment research.

The three types of institutions each hold a card, but the game is changing.

In the past, the value of fund sales mainly came from the transaction itself.

You help customers find a fund, customers buy it, and the channel gets sales revenue. But today, fund products are becoming more and more standardized.

ETFs can be compared, indexes can be compared, fund managers can be compared, and the fee rate is becoming more and more transparent.

When the product itself becomes more and more transparent, it is more and more difficult for channels to obtain high premiums simply by "selling a product".

As a result, channels must look for new value - asset allocation.

Combined with the historical industry statistics of the Asset Management Association of China, the stock investment scale of the fund industry increased by 41% in the past five years, reaching 13.4 trillion yuan; by June 2026, the scale of public offering funds reached 39.67 trillion yuan, serving more than 860 million investors, and the penetration rate of fund investment reached 60%. At the same time, the industry is accelerating the development of index-based, allocation-oriented and absolute return products.

When an industry has more than 800 million investors and assets close to 40 trillion yuan, it can hardly achieve real growth by "selling one more fund".

Because after the market is large enough, the problem will change from "how much more can we sell" to "why do customers stay". This is also why buy-side investment advisory has become a keyword for more and more financial institutions.

GF Securities has clearly pointed the wealth management transformation to "solution-oriented, asset allocation-oriented, and buy-side investment advisory-oriented"; China Merchants Bank is also combining asset review, wealth companionship and multi-asset allocation through the TREE asset allocation service system.

The two institutions have different paths, but their directions are highly consistent: what customers buy should no longer be just a fund, but a complete set of solutions.

There is another noteworthy signal in this list - the leading players are getting bigger and bigger, and it is getting harder and harder for small and medium-sized institutions.

In the first half of 2026, the non-monetary fund holding scale of the top 100 institutions was 13.79 trillion yuan, up 17.88% year on year, but the growth between channels was not balanced.

Third-party institutions grew the fastest, banks grew relatively slowly; securities firms maintained stability relying on index funds.

At the same time, new institutions are entering. For example, E-Fund Wealth Management Fund Sales (Guangzhou) Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of E-Fund that was approved by the China Securities Regulatory Commission in July last year, has reached 8.9 billion yuan in non-monetary fund holdings and entered the top 100 list.

In the first half of the year, Jiyu Fund increased its non-monetary holdings by 113.5 billion yuan to 418.9 billion yuan, with an increase of 37.16%; Teng An Fund's non-monetary holdings also rose to 488.8 billion yuan.

This means that the future fund sales market is unlikely to simply become "banks defeated by the internet", and it is more likely to see "head concentration + layered competition" - super platforms compete for traffic, banks compete for high-net-worth customers and asset allocation, securities firms compete for ETF and trading customers, fund companies begin to build their own sales and wealth management platforms, and small and medium-sized institutions need to find a sufficiently narrow and deep living space.

This is actually highly consistent with the changes taking place in the fund industry itself.

In the past, fund companies expanded their scale by issuing products; now, fund companies increasingly need to answer: Why do customers choose you? Why do they hold your products? Why don't they redeem when the market falls?

These problems ultimately point to the same capability - investor companionship.

Epilogue

This competition for capabilities is ultimately reflected in the reshaping of the channel pattern.

The default order that has existed in China's public offering fund sales industry for many years has finally been broken.

Banks no longer naturally have the position of the largest channel, but this does not mean that the bank era is over. Because banks still have a huge customer base, stock assets and comprehensive financial capabilities; China Merchants Bank's agency sales of non-monetary public offering funds increased by 82.73% year on year in the first half of the year, which is the best proof in itself.

Similarly, internet platforms have not won the final game. The 2 trillion yuan holding scale proves the value of traffic and scenarios, but cannot automatically prove that investors have finally obtained better long-term returns.

Securities firms have not fallen behind either. The 1.53 trillion yuan holding scale of equity index funds and the 10.287 billion yuan income of listed securities firms from consigned financial products prove that investment research, trading and asset allocation are still a very solid moat.

Therefore, this is not a simple channel substitution, but more like a redistribution of value chains.

In the past, whoever mastered the sales channel mastered part of the pricing power of the fund industry; in the future, whoever can truly master customers' asset allocation decisions is likely to master the pricing power of wealth management.

Ant Fund's 2 trillion yuan is a milestone in the traffic era; the counterattack of banks is the defense in the era of stock customers; the ETF advantage of securities firms is the chip in the era of professional investment.

Behind all three, there is the same increasingly clear fact: the second half of fund sales is no longer about who is better at selling funds, but about who knows better how to place an investor's money and why.

This is perhaps what this top 100 fund consignment list is really worth remembering.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Alpha Workshop DeepFund", author: Ji Ge, published with authorization from 36Kr.