The Chinese banking giant reported a generally strong set of figures for 2014.

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, said to be the world’s largest bank by assets, yesterday reported a net profit of RMB276.3 billion ($44.5 billion) for 2014, a 5.1 per cent year-on-year increase. (See here for this publication's recent interview with ICBC about wealth management.)

The banking group said that the number of its private banking clients rose to 40,000 last year; total assets under management posted a growth of 36 per cent year-on-year. The balance of wealth management products exceeded RMB1.9 trillion, which translated into more than RMB68 billion in returns for customers. The bank said the figures underline its status as the biggest asset management bank in the domestic market.

Basic earnings per share reached RMB0.78, up RMB0.03 year-on-year.

ICBC’s 2014 annual cash dividend is expected to reach RMB91.026 billion, with pre-tax dividend amounting to RMB2.554 per 10 shares.

As at the end of 2014, as calculated by the new capital rules, ICBC’s capital adequacy ratio stood at 14.53 per cent, up 1.41 percentage points from the end of last year. Its core tier one capital adequacy ratio and tier one capital adequacy ratio reached record highs of 11.92 per cent and 12.19 per cent respectively, representing an increase of 1.35 percentage points and 1.62 percentage points respectively, compared to the end of the previous year.