As the year draws to a close, many banks are intensifying their promotional efforts for exclusive preferential activities related to opening personal pension accounts and making contributions. They are attracting customers through prize draws, WeChat discounts, and cash bonuses. Unlike previous years, the focus of bank marketing strategies is no longer on "attracting new customers to open accounts," but rather on "retaining and engaging existing customers." Providing a comprehensive product system to preserve and grow residents' wealth has become the core competitiveness of banking institutions in developing their personal pension business.
Currently, the personal pension investment and wealth management system is being rapidly improved. Since the pilot program for the personal pension system was launched on November 25, 2022, the number of personal pension accounts has exceeded 70 million, and the number of products has continued to expand to 1,245.
The "15th Five-Year Plan" recommendations proposed "actively responding to population aging and improving the policy mechanism for the coordinated development of elderly care services and industries," and "actively developing elderly human resources and promoting the silver economy." It can be seen that improving the elderly financial product system and addressing residents' concerns about the future are fundamental to addressing population aging and developing the silver economy.
As society ages, the preservation and appreciation of residents' wealth is receiving increasing attention.
Data from the Ministry of Civil Affairs shows that during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, my country's life expectancy reached 79 years. By the end of 2024, my country's elderly population aged 60 and above reached 310 million, accounting for 22% of the total population; the elderly population aged 65 and above reached 220 million, accounting for 15.6% of the total population.
"Pension finance is an important direction for building a strong financial nation, and even more so for addressing population aging. Developing pension finance is not only a growth point for promoting the vigorous development of the financial industry, but also a very important project for people's livelihood," said Zheng Gongcheng, a member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and a member of the Social Construction Committee of the National People's Congress, at the 10th New Finance Forum recently.
With increasing life expectancy and pressure on pension replacement rates, preserving and increasing residents' wealth has become a core issue for maintaining their quality of life in old age. Currently, my country's pension finance includes financing for basic pensions, enterprise annuities, occupational annuities, personal pensions, various commercial life insurance products, and other pension services, and a pension finance system is gradually being established.
"The scale of pension finance is still relatively small." Zheng Gongcheng believes that my country needs to further improve the policy environment for developing pension finance, increase the precision of policies, and residents still need to continuously raise their awareness of pensions and make reasonable plans for pension finance.
It's worth noting that the recent adjustments to banks' promotional strategies for personal pension funds reflect the continued phenomenon of "hot account openings but cold deposits" in the personal pension business. This indicates that, from the demand side, many residents prioritize short-term gains while neglecting long-term planning for retirement investment.
Meanwhile, another important reason is that, from the supply side, the investment and wealth management products available in the personal pension market are still homogeneous, making it difficult for investors to find products that truly meet their needs. This has affected their enthusiasm for making contributions to some extent, resulting in a phenomenon of "many accounts opened, few contributions made, and few investments."
The personal pension product system continues to improve.
In March of this year, the General Office of the State Financial Supervision and Administration Bureau issued the "Implementation Plan for High-Quality Development of Pension Finance in the Banking and Insurance Industries," promoting banking and insurance institutions to develop exclusive wealth management products and long-term care insurance. The pension financial product system is continuously being enriched, forming a diversified matrix of "savings + insurance + wealth management."
Regarding the personal pension product system, the current product offerings cover savings, insurance, funds, and wealth management products. On November 21, the Ministry of Finance and the People's Bank of China issued a notice clarifying that starting from June 2026, electronic savings bonds will be included in the scope of personal pension products. This further expands the pool of personal pension products, better meeting the needs of investors with different risk appetites.
Data from the National Social Insurance Public Service Platform shows that as of November 25, there were 1,245 individual pension products, including 466 savings products, 305 fund products, 437 insurance products, and 37 wealth management products.
“Currently, there are relatively few personal pension products, mainly because the market is still in its early stages of development. The relevant system requires an exploratory process from pilot programs to full implementation. The current product supply does indeed need to be enriched in terms of both quantity and diversity, and some products suffer from homogenization and insufficient innovation, failing to fully integrate the long-term and security-oriented nature of retirement needs into their differentiated designs. However, with policy support and increased market participation, the product supply is steadily improving, and its overall operation, pursuing stability and long-term value preservation and appreciation, is becoming increasingly clear,” said Xue Hongyan, a special researcher at Sushang Bank, in an interview with the Financial Times.
Tian Lihui, a finance professor at Nankai University, holds a similar view. He believes that the initial intention of the system was to guide long-term investment through an "account system," and the scarcity of products presents an opportunity for supply-side structural reform. In the future, as the system deepens, personal pension products will inevitably become more diversified.
Banks must shift from "single service" to "ecosystem integration".
Currently, judging from the development of banks' personal pension business, public fund products are the main sales force for various banks. Six banks, including CITIC Bank and Industrial Bank, have sold more than 200 such products in total, while the number of bank wealth management products sold is relatively small.
In terms of returns, Wind data shows that since its inception, among the 305 fund products with available returns, 296 products have achieved positive returns, and 200 products have achieved returns of over 10%.
Industry insiders believe this provides initial validation of the ability of personal pension funds to preserve and increase value as a long-term investment tool.
Going forward, banks will generally face the core challenge of shifting from "account accumulation" to "substantial reserves" when developing personal pension business. Two major issues that urgently need to be addressed are "product homogenization" and "weak investor awareness of pension financial management".
Tian Lihui believes that banks, as the core intermediaries in the pension market, need to complete a triple transformation: from "product promotion" to "wealth planning," using financial technology to build a full-life-cycle pension solution; from "single service" to "ecosystem integration," linking medical, health and wellness scenarios to create a "finance + service" closed loop; and from "risk avoidance" to "dynamic management," developing innovative products such as target date funds to match changes in investors' risk tolerance.
Xue Hongyan believes that banking institutions should fully leverage their core advantages in account management to actively expand their business. The key lies in building a multi-tiered, differentiated product system, breaking through the existing pattern, strengthening investment research capabilities, and developing innovative products that truly align with long-term retirement planning goals and integrate with various service scenarios. Simultaneously, banks need to deepen their customer-centric service transformation, providing personalized services from planning to allocation based on customers' lifecycle stages, integrating a multi-pillar retirement financial "view," improving the online and offline service ecosystem and investor education, and helping customers cultivate a long-term investment philosophy.
