OREANDA-NEWS. December 23, 2013. At the 8 th Asian 21st Century Annual Finance Summit held on December 5, IB rose to No.7 among Asian banks in terms of competitive edges, topping China's joint-stock banks. President Li Renjie of Industrial Bank (IB) was also honored the title of “Asian Banker 2013” by the Academic Committee of the summit.

“Proficient in the art of management, he has lead IB to make best use of its advantages and bypass its disadvantages, making remarkable business achievements.” The academic committed gave a high comment on President Li, “from the global financial crisis to the changes in macroeconomic policies, he could always avoid storms and catch the greatest market opportunities. This can be attributed to his accurate judgment over the market situation and industrious practice in the innovation of differentiated business model.”

During the 11 years from 2002, when he began to serve as the president of IB, till now, IB has seized opportunities by following the trend, adhered to the differentiated business operation, sought development through innovation, and pushed forward transformation through reform, gradually developing a development path with unique IB characteristics. The total assets of the bank has grown from RMB 124.8 billion to RMB 3633.6 billion, an increase over 28 times, with an annual compound growth rate of 34.49%.

The net profits realized accumulatively from 2002 to the end of 2012 hit RMB 121.847 billion, with a mean annual compound growth rate of 47.52%, and the net profits in the first three quarters of 2013 registered RMB 33.1 billion, a continuous growth of 25.67% YoY. Starting to grow from 8.21%, the rate of return on net assets has been kept around 25% stably, taking a leading position in the industry for a long period. Now, staying stably among China Top 10 Banks, Global Top 50 Banks, and Fortune Global 500, IB has preliminarily built itself into a comprehensive financial service group, focusing on the principal banking businesses and covering trust, lease, fund, and assets management.

“We should, based on our own characteristics, make strategic arrangements, pinpoint our position, figure out our direction, and do something correct but not everything”, and this is a piece of important experience that President Li summarizes for the fast development of IB over years.

With regard to the development trend of Chinese banking industry, President Li also has his own opinion.

“In the future, Chinese banking industry will meet a new round of major reforms, which are characterized by differentiation, restructuring, diversity and integration,” indicated President Li in the thematic speech that he was invited to deliver at the “21st Century Bankers' Forum”.

In the future, he believed, players in the financial arena would become more diversified, and the business performance and competition performance of banks would not be scaled only in terms of scale, but rather their market positioning – whether they have their own business features and competitive edges.

“Integration will become a trend”, indicated President Li. On the one hand, it is the integration inside the financial industry, namely the business scopes of financial institutions engaging in different industries would become further penetrated mutually, and crossed innovation would continue developing with great prosperity. On the other hand, under the influence of new technologies like mobile internet, cross-border competition would become more and more furious, and banks would face increasing penetration challenges of other non-financial institutions.

President Li stressed: “In the future, those banks that really boast differentiated business capacities and stronger value-creating capacities will stand out among peers at a faster rate”.