Banks should accelerate restructuring: ex-head of ICBC

Chinese banks "must accelerate their transformation and upgrading by restructuring their asset and profit structure and regional layout of branches," said Yang Kaisheng, former president of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.

The country's economy is entering the "new normal" stage for it has shifted from high-speed growth to medium-to-high-speed growth.

Currently, credit asset is taking an increasingly smaller proportion of the banks' total assets due to financial disintermediation and profit from net interest margins will shrink further.

"Therefore, the banks will make great efforts to develop their asset management business to compensate for the decline of net interest income, which is a move toward transformation by the banks," Yang said.

He said Chinese banks have relatively high provisions for impairment losses and Tier 1 capital, the core measure of a bank's financial strength, takes a large proportion of their total assets, so people should not overemphasize risks related to banks' asset quality while paying close attention to the risks.