On 22 December 2025, China's financial regulator, the National Financial Regulatory Administration, published Order No. 10 of 2025, which sets disclosure rules for asset-management products sold by banks, trust companies and insurers. The rules take effect on 1 September 2026.
It is one measure in a busy year. In 2025 the regulator also issued trust-industry rules (27 January), measures on banks' distribution of products on behalf of other institutions (21 March), unified suitability requirements (11 July) and rules on bank custody (12 December).
The direction is clear. It follows years of losses on products that households bought believing they were something safer than they were.
A disclosure rule does not make a product safe. It makes a product describable, which is the first condition for judging it.
Why now
Chinese households' savings flowed into wealth-management products after deposit rates fell. See the day the deposit rate went below 1%. The Zhongzhi trust group declared bankruptcy in January 2024, and some products bought as quasi-deposits proved to carry real credit risk.
One structural change was already well advanced: by the end of 2023, products valued at market ("net value") made up about 96.9% of bank wealth-management product balances, according to a 2024 industry guide. The old habit of presenting a fixed expected return, as with a deposit, had largely given way to products whose value rises and falls.
What to read in a disclosure
Whatever the exact requirements, there are five things a household should be able to answer from the documents for any product:
- What does it hold? The underlying assets, and how concentrated they are.
- What does it cost? All fees, including those charged inside the product.
- How is it valued? By market price, or by the manager's estimate?
- When can I get out, and at what price? Redemption rules, notice periods and limits.
- Who stands behind it? The issuer, the distributor, and what each is responsible for.
If the answers are not clear from the document, that is information.
The fundamentals
Return is compensation for risk. A product that pays more than a deposit is paying for something. Identify what it is: credit risk, longer maturity, illiquidity, or complexity.
The seller's incentives matter. A distributor may earn commission on a product. That does not make the advice wrong, and it is a reason to check it.
Suitability is about you. A product can be sound and still wrong for your needs, time horizon or ability to take loss. Suitability is a match between a product and a person, and the person has to participate in establishing it.
Do not hold what you cannot explain. If you cannot describe in two sentences what you own, how it makes money and what could go wrong, the position is too complicated for the money it holds.
Practical implications
- Ask for the full disclosure document before buying, not a summary.
- Find the underlying assets and look at the largest holdings and their issuers.
- Add up all fees over the holding period.
- Check redemption terms against when you might need the money.
- Write down why you bought it, and what would make you sell.
- Keep a portion in simple, liquid form that does not depend on anyone's description.
Update, October 2026: what the following months added
Order No. 10 took effect on 1 September 2026. On 31 December 2025, the regulators also announced a third phase of fee reductions for public funds. In April 2026, a Beijing court ordered the liquidation of the Zhongzhi group and more than 300 affiliates, with claims to be filed formally and recovery over years.
What we could not confirm
The body of this post reflects what was known on 23 December 2025; later developments are in the update section. We did not read Order No. 10 itself and know its content only through a summary in a law-firm annual report and trade press. The 96.9% figure is from a 2024 industry guide and refers to the end of 2023. This is education, not investment advice.
Sources
- Mondaq, PRC Financial Regulation Annual Report 2026; Hubbis, coverage of NFRA Order No. 10 (December 2025)
- Hankun Law, guide to asset management in China (2024)
- CNN, Chinese shadow bank Zhongzhi bankruptcy (5 January 2024); The Edge Malaysia on the April 2026 liquidation order