Agricultural Bank of China Logo

Agricultural Bank of China traces its roots to July 10, 1951, when Farmers Bank of China and Cooperation Bank were merged into the Agricultural Cooperative Bank. The new institution was created to collect rural savings and provide preferential loans to farmers and production cooperatives during China’s agrarian restructuring. In 1952, it was absorbed into the People’s Bank of China.

The bank was restored and dissolved several times over the next two decades. In 1955, it reopened as the Agricultural Bank of China, but merged again with the People’s Bank in 1957. Another attempt followed in 1963, yet the bank was liquidated in 1965. This pattern reflected uncertainty over banking structure under a planned economy.

Its lasting revival came in February 1979, at the start of Deng Xiaoping’s reform and opening-up era. The State Council restored the bank to its status as a specialized state institution. Alongside the Bank of China, the People’s Construction Bank of China, and, from 1984, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, it became part of the country’s “big four” state banks.

In the 1980s, the Agricultural Bank of China expanded across China at the county level, financing rural areas and collecting village savings. In 1994, policy lending was transferred to the new Agricultural Development Bank of China. After debt cleanup through asset management companies in 1999, the bank became Agricultural Bank of China Limited in 2009. In July 2010, it was listed on the Shanghai and Hong Kong stock exchanges, raising about $22.1 billion in what was then the world’s largest IPO.