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According to media reports, on the morning of July 16, relevant departments of Shanghai Municipality had arrived at Shanghai Pudong Development Bank (600000.SH) to announce a personnel appointment, with Xie Wei appointed as the Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank.

Previously, on July 5, the Organization Department of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee had released a "Pre-appointment Public Notice for City-Managed Cadres in Shanghai" and mentioned that Xie Wei was intended to be appointed to a key position in a city-managed enterprise.

Following the procedure, after approval from the relevant departments of the Financial Regulatory General Bureau, Xie Wei is set to become the new president of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank.

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With Xie Wei's promotion, the new management team of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank has essentially been formed.

In September of last year, there was a change in the senior management of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank: the former chairman Zheng Yang and president Pan Weidong resigned on the same day, and several leaders took up positions. The role of Party Committee Secretary and Chairman was assumed by Zhang Weizhong, the former Director of Corporate Business at China Construction Bank (601939.SH), the Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee was taken by Zhao Wanbing, the former Deputy Director of the Shanghai Municipal Financial Bureau, and the Deputy President was appointed by Kang Jie, the former Deputy Director of the Shanghai Municipal State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission.

The position of president remained vacant for 10 months until Xie Wei took up the new role.

Unlike the aforementioned leaders who filled in the positions, Xie Wei was promoted from within Shanghai Pudong Development Bank and is already a "veteran" within the bank.

Born in 1971, Xie Wei is currently a member of the Party Committee, Deputy President, Secretary of the Board of Directors, and Director of the Financial Market Business of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank (he no longer holds this position after serving as the Dean of the Bank's Research Institute).

In 2005, Xie Wei first joined Shanghai Pudong Development Bank and has held key positions in the Corporate and Investment Banking Headquarters and Development Management Department, Investment Banking Business Department, and Key Customer Department, and served as the Party Secretary and President of the Fuzhou Branch.

Four years later, Xie Wei returned to the head office, successively serving as the General Manager of the Funding Headquarters, General Manager of the Asset Management Department, and General Manager of the Financial Markets Department, and was promoted to the position of Deputy President of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank in 2016.However, prior to this, Xie Wei was not the first-ranked deputy president.

After the high-level changes in September last year, Liu Yiyan, the deputy secretary of the Party Committee of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank, became the first-ranked deputy president, also presiding over the management's operational work.

Market speculation suggests that Xie Wei's promotion is due to two reasons: first, Liu Yiyan is about to retire at the age of 60, and second, Xie Wei's expertise in the corporate sector aligns with the strengths of the current chairman, Zhang Wei Zhong, and is also what Shanghai Pudong Development Bank currently needs.

As the first commercial bank listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, since its establishment, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank has relied on the Yangtze River Delta region and, with the rapid development of its corporate business, once became the "King of Corporate Business" among joint-stock commercial banks.

However, in the subsequent transition to a lighter asset model, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank has been lagging in the retail competition due to a lack of competitive advantage, with its asset scale being successively surpassed by Industrial Bank (601166.SH) and CITIC Bank (601998.SH).

On one hand, there is the slow growth of non-interest income, and on the other hand, the corporate business, once glorious, is no longer so due to frequent corporate defaults and rising non-performing loan ratios. Under pressure, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank saw a continuous decline in both revenue and net profit for three years from 2021 to 2023, becoming the only listed bank in China to experience a "double decline" for three consecutive years.

Under pressure, more stability is needed.

In the first quarter of this year, Shanghai Pudong Development Bank has already made organizational adjustments to serve the "digital intelligence strategy" transformation.

This includes the establishment of new research institutes, data management departments, and the transformation of the head office's information technology department into the "Technology Development Department." In addition, several departments such as the private banking department, asset-liability department, and asset management department have been renamed or merged.

At the 2023 performance briefing, Zhang Wei Zhong frankly stated that in the face of state-owned banks with strong comprehensive competitive advantages and small banks that are meticulously cultivating local markets, joint-stock banks need to find their own strengths and lead iterative upgrades through innovation.Xie Wei stated at the shareholders' meeting in June 2023 that the company's executives have a firm confidence in the development of Shanghai Pudong Development Bank (SPD Bank).

"The company's executives have long held a certain scale of SPD Bank shares. Over the past few years, regardless of market fluctuations, the management has not reduced its holdings in SPD Bank shares. We have a firm confidence in the long-term development of SPD Bank," Xie Wei expressed.

In the first quarter, SPD Bank's operating income reached 45.328 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 5.72%; the net profit attributable to the parent company was 17.421 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.04%.

As of the close on the morning of July 17, SPD Bank's share price was 9.03 yuan per share, up by 1.92%.