Recently, several bank wealth management subsidiaries such as ICBC Wealth Management, Puyin Wealth Management, CMB Wealth Management, and Ningyin Wealth Management, as well as some banks, have issued intensive announcements of preferential rates for their wealth management products, offering "discounts" on sales service fees, fixed management fees, and other rates for their wealth management products. Some product rates have even dropped to zero.

At the same time, the overall scale of the bank wealth management market continues to grow. The existing scale of wealth management in the entire market reached 33.66 trillion yuan, an increase of 1.11% from the beginning of the year and a year-on-year increase of 9.75%. What is the logic behind the continuous decline in fees while the industry scale is still growing?

The Deep Motivation Behind the Appearance of 'Giving Up Benefits'

The "zero fee rate" phenomenon in this round of bank wealth management is not the result of institutions actively offering benefits to investors, but rather the acceleration of "deposit relocation" and the continuous decline of asset side returns.

The 'deposit relocation' is accelerating, with a large number of fixed deposits expiring, and wealth management companies taking advantage of the situation to lower fees and attract customers. According to calculations from multiple securities firms, the medium - to long-term deposits that are expected to mature this year are estimated to be between 400000 to 60 trillion yuan. Since the beginning of the year, wealth management companies have been intensively reducing fees, aiming to take over some of the overflow funds with price advantages and seize the window of fund allocation. Especially during the peak of dual period fund allocation, wealth management subsidiaries use short-term interest rates to attract idle funds, forming a phased strategy of "exchanging price for quantity".

The deeper reason is the continuous decline in asset side returns. The "Half Year Report on China's Banking Wealth Management Market (2026)" released by the Banking Wealth Management Registration and Custody Center shows that the average annualized yield of wealth management products in the first half of 2026 was only 2.05%, a decrease of 7 basis points from 2.12% in the same period of 2025; Accumulated profits of 305.2 billion yuan for investors, a year-on-year decrease of 21.66%. Against the backdrop of continuously declining yields on fixed income assets such as bonds, if the original rate level is maintained, the actual received returns after deducting expenses may remain unchanged or even lower than the deposit interest rate of the same period, which will directly weaken the attractiveness of the product and reduce investors' investment willingness.

Under the normal trend of fee reduction, industry differentiation is accelerating

From the perspective of the industry landscape, the trend of fee reductions is accelerating the differentiation between top tier and small and medium-sized institutions. Top institutions, relying on their economies of scale and cost advantages, can normalize phased fee reductions, while small and medium-sized institutions are forced to struggle between profitability and competition. If some small and medium-sized institutions are forced to follow suit and reduce prices, it will further intensify their business pressure.

According to the interim reports of 23 wealth management companies that have disclosed net profits in the first half of 2026, a total of 15.928 billion yuan was achieved in the first half of the year, with 17 companies showing year-on-year growth and 6 companies showing year-on-year decline. Significant differentiation: Xinyin Wealth Management topped the list for the first time with a net profit of 1.518 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26.92%. CMB Wealth Management ranked second with 1.513 billion yuan, and Xingyin Wealth Management ranked third with 1.315 billion yuan; However, the net profits of Agricultural Bank of China Wealth Management and Bank of China Wealth Management decreased by 22.47% and 28% respectively year-on-year94%, with a decrease of over 20% for Puyin Wealth Management, Chongqing Rural Commercial Wealth Management, and Zhejiang Bank Wealth Management. Large banks and some regional bank wealth management subsidiaries are facing profit adjustment pressure.

Overall, this wave of fee reductions is becoming the new normal in the wealth management industry. In this process, top institutions rely on economies of scale, channel advantages, and research and investment capabilities to better digest the downward trend in fees and consolidate market share through "quantity based pricing". Small and medium-sized institutions face a dilemma: not reducing fees may lead to customer loss, following up with fee reductions may compress profits, and even erode investment in research and risk resistance. As a result, industry competition will gradually shift from a simple price war to a competition of comprehensive strengths such as investment research capabilities, product design, asset allocation, and customer service, and market differentiation may further intensify.

Zero rate "is not free, investment needs to be cautious

'Zero rate' is not completely free.

Most so-called 'zero rate' products only waive one of the fixed management fees or sales service fees, while retaining basic operating costs such as custody fees, transaction fees, and information disclosure fees. Some products even make up for revenue gaps by providing excess performance rewards. Excess performance compensation refers to the floating management fee charged by the manager based on a certain proportion of the excess portion when the operating returns of the financial product exceed the performance benchmark. The industry generally provides a provision ratio between 20% and 50%.

For example, according to the announcement of Suyin Wealth Management Hengyuan's one-year subscription of 40 products, if the actual investment return of the shares exceeds 3.20%, the manager will charge an excess performance reward of 20% of the excess. Gansu Bank's "Huifu" Anxingying (2M) product adopts a tiered provision: for the portion exceeding the lower limit of the performance comparison benchmark by 2.10% but not exceeding 2.90%, a provision of 20% is made, and for the portion exceeding 2.90%, a provision of 50% is made. This design links institutional revenue with investor returns, but also means that investors need to bear implicit costs under higher performance thresholds.

In addition, the cognitive misconception that investors are prone to fall into is equating "low fees" with "low risk" or "high cost-effectiveness". In fact, the rate mainly affects net income and long-term compound interest, while the quality of underlying assets, strategic robustness, and drawdown control ability determine the safety of principal and the sustainability of returns. Many industry insiders have repeatedly emphasized that "low fees do not equal low risk", and if "zero fee" products are invested in high maturity credit bonds or equity structures, their volatility may not be lower than that of fee based products.

Ultimately, 'zero rate' is not a free lunch, but a marketing tactic under intensified industry competition. For investors, when choosing a wealth management product, don't just focus on the rate numbers. The rate savings are only a few basis points, but choosing the wrong product can result in real losses. Don't let the word 'free' make risk decisions for you.

(The author of this article is a researcher at the Jingguan Research Institute)