Bank president: The banking industry must seize the opportunity of developing direct financing, and enhance residents' consumption capacity through wealth management.

On March 22, Zhang Yi, the president of China Construction Bank, stated at the China Development Forum 2026 Annual Meeting's Special Seminar on "New Trends and Opportunities in Consumption Growth" that the current consumer market in China is undergoing profound structural changes with three new trends: first, the focus of consumption is accelerating from physical goods to services; second, the leading role of new consumption is becoming increasingly prominent, with digital consumption, green consumption, and healthy consumption continuing to rise; third, the momentum of growth in county and rural markets is relatively strong, "it is expected that by 2030, most of China's personal consumption growth will come from the sinking market in counties and rural areas." Zhang Yi suggested that the banking industry should empower business entities, enhance the quality and efficiency of consumption supply, on one hand, strengthen credit support for service industries such as wholesale and retail, accommodation and catering, culture and entertainment, and tourism, and provide financial services for the construction of consumption infrastructure and distribution system; on the other hand, precisely target small and micro supply entities, providing convenient, efficient, and stable financial support for various entities serving consumption upgrade. The banking industry should also adapt to market trends, stimulate the potential of consumer demand, seize the development opportunities of direct financing, enhance residents' consumption capacity through wealth management, expand consumer demand, and invest in policies that focus on education, healthcare, and elderly care, research and develop exclusive financial products to support consumption upgrade. Furthermore, the banking industry should deepen scenario finance, build a consumption cooperation ecosystem, integrate into the era of intelligence, create new consumer financial formats, actively leverage artificial intelligence in user analysis, intelligent recommendations, customized production, dynamic pricing, and other areas to accurately and efficiently meet the needs of consumer finance. At the same time, actively layout new consumption increment markets opened up by artificial intelligence, such as smart home appliances, smart connected car application services, companion robots, digital content consumption, and so on.