Hong Kong Banking Report 2026

Welcome to the 2026 edition of the Hong Kong Banking Report, which includes the financial results of banks in 2025 alongside a detailed analysis of the top ten banks in the city. As we reflect on the past twelve months, what is most striking is how quickly the narrative around Hong Kong’s banking sector has shifted — from one of cautious recovery this time last year, to one of genuine momentum returning across most parts of the balance sheet.

The 2025 performance data shows deposits and balance sheets expanding, loans returning to growth after the previous year’s contraction, and credit quality holding up well overall. The headline financials are encouraging, and we set them out in detail in the first section of the report.

Jianing Song

Head of Banking and Capital Markets, Hong Kong SAR

KPMG China

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Paul McSheaffrey

Senior Banking Partner, Hong Kong SAR

KPMG China

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We have structured this year’s report around three themes that we believe will define the sector over the medium term: Performance, Growth and Trust. We hope you find the report insightful and as always, we would welcome the opportunity to discuss any of the themes in more detail.

In Performance, we provide our usual analysis of the top ten locally incorporated licensed banks, focusing on margins, costs, loan growth and credit quality.

In Growth, we look at where the next wave of opportunity is being created – the SFC–HKMA Roadmap for fixed income and currency markets, Hong Kong’s emerging gold hub ambitions, the increasingly commercial case for transition finance, where banks should be focused on private credit, the steady evolution of digital payments, and the opportunities in the family office segment.

In Trust, we turn to the operational and reputational dimensions that will determine whether the growth opportunity can actually be captured. We examine where banks are – and are not – translating AI into real enterprise value, how AI-enabled scams are reshaping the financial crime landscape, and why post-quantum cryptography and AI-driven cyber threats need to move up the board agenda sooner than many assume.

Performance

Overview of financial results

Hong Kong banks regain loan momentum and strengthen foundations for the future

Growth

The growth story for Hong Kong’s banks is increasingly about positioning for the structural shifts that are currently underway. The common thread is that each of these requires banks to invest and plan ahead of the revenue, embedding conduct and governance early, building credible frameworks around data and risk, and developing the specialist capabilities needed to engage clients as strategic partners.

Ethical standards of conduct need to be embedded alongside new infrastructure from the outset, rather than retrofitted once issues emerge.

Banks should be assessing their readiness to participate across the value chain – from refining and vaulting through to clearing and tokenisation – and considering how Hong Kong’s connectivity into the Mainland and ASEAN translates into a credible commercial proposition.

Banks should be focused on building credibility through clear taxonomies, robust assessment of clients’ transition plans, and the data infrastructure needed to support ISSB-aligned disclosures.

Banks should be refreshing their risk appetite, strengthening look-through diligence and reviewing valuation governance ahead of more prescriptive regulatory requirements.

Banks should be looking at how they evolve their proposition from custody and execution towards genuine strategic partnership, and at whether they have the capability to advise on governance, digital assets, commodities, philanthropy and impact investing.

Banks in wait-and-see mode should be using this period to build “muscle memory” - developing teams, governance and technology familiarity so they are ready when adoption accelerates.

Trust

The threat landscape is moving faster than most banks’ control environments. Banks are facing challenges scaling their own internal AI projects while the very same technology is being weaponised against them, and the work needed to prepare — whether for AI, financial crime or cyber — takes longer than it appears. Getting governance, resilience and security right as technology evolves is essential to maintaining the long-term trust the banking system depends on.

Banks should be looking beyond isolated pilots and considering how data foundations, workflows, decision rights and governance need to be redesigned for AI to deliver at scale.

Banks should be moving from rule-based, periodic controls towards perpetual, intelligence-led monitoring, and engaging more actively in the cross-institutional ecosystem regulators are clearly steering towards.

Banks should be beginning their post-quantum migration work now, starting with cryptographic inventories and the protection of long-lived sensitive data.

Financial Results

Compare the results of banks across a variety of metrics in the charts for each of the five categories of banks in Hong Kong

Hong Kong Banking Report 2026

Positioned for Growth

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KPMG in China has offices located in 31 cities with over 14, 000 partners and staff, in Beijing, Changchun, Changsha, Chengdu, Chongqing, Dalian, Dongguan, Foshan, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Haikou, Hangzhou, Hefei, Jinan, Nanjing, Nantong, Ningbo, Qingdao, Shanghai, Shenyang, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Taiyuan, Tianjin, Wuhan, Wuxi, Xiamen, Xi'an, Zhengzhou, Hong Kong SAR and Macau SAR. It started operations in Hong Kong in 1945. In 1992, KPMG became the first international accounting network to be granted a joint venture licence in the Chinese Mainland. In 2012, KPMG became the first among the “Big Four” in the Chinese Mainland to convert from a joint venture to a special general partnership.

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