Several trust companies have recently increased fees for channel business, with
some firms implementing marked hikes. Sources say the moves respond to
regulatory guidance to rein in excessive intermediation and to firms’
scale-control and commercial-sustainability needs. A representative of a roughly
100 billion yuan trust firm said some large, channel-heavy trusts are reducing
related business voluntarily or under scale limits; several firms are using
higher channel fees to compel bank wealth managers to cut cooperation so they
can shrink scale while keeping revenue broadly unchanged. Industry average
channel fees have risen from about 1 bp to roughly 2 bps. Multiple trust-company
sources report that business shed by firms tightening scale control is being
absorbed by others, and several trusts are actively seeking access/qualification
to manage outsourced business from bank wealth-management firms to enter
cooperation whitelists.
