Beijing Bank's Mines to Shed Are Not Just Evergrande Real Estate

Source: Yuan Media Exchange

Author | Tong Hua

When houses are hard to sell, real estate companies face continuous troubles, and banks find it difficult to recover loans. Even the former “King of City Commercial Banks” is inevitably affected.

“Transfer of non-performing loans worth 930 million yuan listed,” this recent news from the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission directly put Beijing Bank in the spotlight. Behind the “delinquent debtor” is the well-known Guangdong-based real estate company, R&F Properties.

This seemingly ordinary transfer of non-performing loans is just a microcosm of Beijing Bank’s accelerated cleanup of bad loans since 2025.

Although Beijing Bank’s non-performing loan ratio has fallen below 1.30%, the non-performing loan balance has already exceeded 30 billion yuan. Meanwhile, this star city commercial bank is struggling with declining revenue and slowing profit growth.

R&F’s trouble hits

According to information from the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, the non-performing loan project listed for transfer was from Beijing Bank’s Shanghai Branch, with a claim amount of 930.9067 million yuan, including principal of 799.6883 million yuan, interest of 130.9306 million yuan, and fees of 2.878 million yuan.

Image source: China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission website

The borrower of this 930 million yuan loan is Shanghai Zhonghong Real Estate Development Co., Ltd. (referred to as “Zhonghong Real Estate”), with collateral consisting of commercial properties and construction in progress. The project covers an area of 46,000 square meters, with a building area of 270,000 square meters, including office buildings, a five-star hotel, a four-star hotel, and underground commercial plazas. The office buildings are designed and built to meet the national green building three-star standard, and most of the park has been visually completed.

According to The Paper, this project is the Shanghai R&F Global Center.

Tianyancha shows that Zhonghong Real Estate was established on September 24, 2013, with a registered capital of 100.10 million yuan. The legal representative is Lin Weixiang.

Image source: Tianyancha

Through equity penetration, Yuan Media Exchange found that Zhonghong Real Estate is a subsidiary of R&F Properties.

In recent years, the real estate industry has entered a downward cycle. With ongoing sluggish sales and severe cash flow issues, even well-known developers like R&F Properties are finding it hard to stay unaffected. Currently, R&F’s debt restructuring is still underway. According to the Economic Observer, R&F Chairman Li Silian has been restricted from leaving the country.

In the first half of 2025, R&F reported a net loss of over 4 billion yuan. For Beijing Bank, recovering this loan is undoubtedly more difficult, so the Shanghai Branch chose to publicly transfer the non-performing loan through the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission. While this helps reduce the non-performing assets on the books, it also reflects the urgency for Beijing Bank to reassess the risks of its real estate assets—potential pressures from existing real estate loans have yet to be fully released.

The question is, who is willing to take on this 930 million yuan debt?

Regarding whether Beijing Bank has taken targeted post-loan management measures after issuing the loan, the current status of the collateral, progress in disposal, and whether the full claim amount can be covered, Yuan Media Exchange sent a letter to Beijing Bank on March 11. As of press time, no reply has been received.

Eager to clear bad loans quickly

The 930 million yuan non-performing loan is not an isolated case.

Review of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission’s listing information since 2025 shows that Beijing Bank has been actively offloading bad assets one after another. Besides corporate bad loans, there have been three batches of personal bad loan transfers, totaling about 835 million yuan in principal and interest, covering “personal consumer loans” and “personal business loans.”

One of the main players remains Beijing Bank’s Shanghai Branch. On November 28, 2025, Beijing Bank Shanghai Branch listed on the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission website the “2025 First Batch of Personal Non-Performing Loan (Personal Consumption Loan) Transfer Project,” with a total outstanding principal and interest of about 637 million yuan, including approximately 474 million yuan in principal and 163 million yuan in interest.

This batch includes 201,500 individual loans involving 31,560 households, with an average overdue period of 731.76 days. All these personal bad loans are from internet-based consumer loans.

Image source: China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission website

Besides Shanghai Branch, Beijing Bank’s Hangzhou and Jinan branches also disclosed personal bad loan transfer projects in 2025, with outstanding principal and interest of approximately 78.37 million yuan and 119.69 million yuan, respectively. Starting bids were 3.62 million yuan and 7.498 million yuan, with discount rates of about 4.62% and 6.26%.

Interestingly, these three batches of personal bad loans only required a deposit of 100,000 yuan each for bidding, and they did not use the “standard agreement for bad loan transfer” nor handle funds through the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, indicating strong pressure to accelerate bad asset disposal.

These personal bad loans mainly expose the asset management pressure of Beijing Bank’s retail credit, especially internet consumer loans. The transferred assets are unsecured, credit-based loans with dispersed borrowers and small individual amounts. Coupled with an average overdue period exceeding two years, the high costs and low efficiency of autonomous collection and judicial disposal are the main reasons why the transfer discounts are generally less than 10%.

Beijing Bank’s intensive packaging and transfer of both corporate and personal bad loans are not only proactive measures to reduce bad loan ratios and repair the asset-liability sheet but also reflect the risk concentration after rapid expansion of internet consumer lending, which urgently needs to be offloaded in bulk.

After tightening real estate loans, banks often expand personal credit, but if risk control lags, it can easily lead to a vicious cycle of rising non-performing rates.

Core financial indicators are deteriorating

Behind the frequent disposal of bad loans is Beijing Bank’s slowing performance growth and increasing asset quality pressure.

Once considered the “leader among city commercial banks,” Beijing Bank was surpassed by Jiangsu Bank in the first half of 2025, falling to second place, with its key financial indicators continuing to worsen.

As of the end of Q3 2025, Beijing Bank’s non-performing loan ratio was 1.29%, a slight decrease from 1.31% at the end of 2024. However, the non-performing loan balance had already exceeded 30 billion yuan, with overdue loans reaching 36.614 billion yuan, including 10.583 billion yuan overdue for more than a year. These “bad debts” are likely to turn into new non-performing loans in the future.

Image source: Beijing Bank’s 2025 semi-annual report

The loan loss provision coverage ratio dropped from 208.75% at the end of 2024 to 195.74%, indicating a weakening of the bank’s “risk buffer.” Meanwhile, its core Tier 1 capital adequacy ratio was 8.44%, down 0.51 percentage points from the end of 2024, ranking third from last among 42 listed banks, with significant capital replenishment pressure.

United Credit Rating Co. in its “Beijing Bank 2025 Follow-up Rating Report” pointed out that the bank’s core Tier 1 capital faces certain replenishment pressures. “The development of Beijing Bank’s business consumes capital formation, and considering its status as a systemically important bank in China, its core capital may face some replenishment pressure.”

Performance growth slowdown is also a concern. In the first three quarters of 2025, Beijing Bank’s revenue was 51.588 billion yuan, down 1.08% year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders was 21.064 billion yuan, up only 0.26%, with a significant slowdown. The impact of the 930 million yuan bad loan transfer from Shanghai Branch on Beijing Bank’s 2026 performance remains uncertain.

Real estate loans remain the biggest uncertainty. As of the end of June 2025, Beijing Bank’s real estate sector loans totaled 124.494 billion yuan, accounting for 5.21% of total loans. While not a very high proportion, during the deep industry adjustment period, this trillion-yuan-scale loan carries hidden risks.

In addition to the 930 million yuan owed by R&F Properties, Beijing Bank also listed a non-performing debt of 2.211 billion yuan from Tahoe Group in December 2025. The interest and penalty interest on this loan reached 1.219 billion yuan, far exceeding the principal of 992 million yuan, making it a classic “bad debt” with interest exceeding principal.

Beijing Bank’s intensive transfer of bad assets is essentially a concentrated release of industry risks. However, “offloading” is only a temporary measure; the real key is to plug the loopholes in risk control. After all, a bank’s core competitiveness lies in risk management, not in “passing the buck after the fact.”

For investors, continuous attention to Beijing Bank’s bad asset disposal progress is crucial. The transparency of this information is key to assessing whether the bank can develop steadily in the future.

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