How much savings: available for "moving"?

Key Points

In 2023, the market is buzzing about the 16 trillion yuan “excess savings” surge. Over three years, these funds locked in with over 3% high interest will face a concentration of maturity around 2026, with rates between 1.2% and 1.5%. As interest rates decline rapidly, the market is observing: will this trigger maturing deposits to flow into other assets, thereby pushing up their prices?

Scale Estimation: Significant but not “Surging”
By 2026, the maturity of residents’ fixed deposits in China will total approximately 76-77 trillion yuan, reaching a historical peak in absolute amount. The pace shows notable seasonality, with maturities in the first quarter possibly reaching 32-34 trillion yuan, creating a “peak at the start of the year” pattern.

However, from a year-over-year perspective, the maturity pressure is limited. In 2025, total maturities are about 66.5 trillion yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 9.6-10.8 trillion yuan, at an growth rate of 14.4%-16.3%, lower than the 17.7% growth rate in 2025. Essentially, the peak maturities in 2025 and 2026 are reflections of the “high deposit growth” in 2022-2023, not sudden shocks.

Decomposition of Pressure: About 25 Trillion Yuan in High-Interest Deposits
Out of the total 76 trillion yuan maturing, roughly 24.8 trillion yuan are deposits with a term of two years or more, enjoying historically high interest rates, accounting for about 32%. This is the core of rollover pressure. The remaining nearly 70% are deposits of one year or less, with minimal interest rate changes upon renewal. However, on a quarter-over-quarter basis, high-interest deposits maturing in 2025 amount to 20.3 trillion yuan, with only a 4.6 trillion yuan increase in 2026. This suggests that the re-pricing pressure in 2026 is more marginal than explosive.

Lessons from 2025: Resilience in Deposit Rollovers
In fact, in 2025, deposits already faced pressure from falling renewal rates, serving as a precursor for 2026. Stress tests in 2025 showed that despite rate declines, renewal rates after deposit maturity remained close to 90%, similar to 2023. This indicates that low interest rates do not automatically trigger risk appetite jumps; residents’ asset allocation remains strongly defensive and inertial.

The Core Contradiction in 2026 Shifts from “Moving” to “Flowing”
Overall, this cycle began around 2023 with residents shifting deposits, but did not accelerate due to the concentrated re-pricing pressure in 2025. The expectation is that 2025 and 2026 will mainly be continuations of previous structural adjustments: despite increased constraints on rate re-pricing, migration of deposits into other assets will proceed slowly and dispersively. However, with a total of about 77 trillion yuan in fixed deposits maturing, even a 10% stable outflow rate could significantly influence marginal pricing in the stock and bond markets. The reallocation of about 32 trillion yuan in the first quarter is a key observation window.

Risk Warnings: Deviations in Data and Assumptions; Unexpected Volatility in Risk Assets
In 2025, we published two research reports on residents’ wealth allocation, highlighting that under the backdrop of faster long-term rate declines compared to short-term rates, residents’ reallocation is likely to be a continuous process rather than a one-off. We pointed out that the deposit shifting since 2023 is not just beginning but has been gradually unfolding. Its internal logic does not suggest a systemic rise in risk appetite but reflects structural shifts between deposits and low-risk “quasi-deposits” under valuation effects. Since 2025, migration of residents’ deposits into other low-risk financial assets has marginally impacted the market.

To date, the narrative of deposit shifting has not cooled but continues to ferment. Discussions around deposit maturities, renewals, and reallocation are intensifying, gradually becoming key clues influencing market expectations. Based on this, we continue our previous research framework and further this series of reports as important insights into asset and market understanding.

Why Focus on 2026 Maturity Deposits?

Currently, discussions about residents’ fixed deposits maturing in 2026 and deposit shifting are intensifying, with many viewing this as a core narrative affecting market liquidity and asset allocation. Why has market attention on 2026 increased sharply now?

2023 was the year when the “excess savings” logic was hotly debated. As the end of the three-year cycle, 2026 has become a focal point for observing reallocation behavior after deposits mature. On one hand, residents’ higher income and lower spending during the pandemic led to some “excess savings”; on the other hand, as yields on real estate, infrastructure, and other underlying assets decline and risks rise, residents’ wealth structure has temporarily shifted back into deposits. In 2022 and 2023, residents’ deposits surged by 17.8 trillion and 16.6 trillion yuan respectively, compared to an average of about 10 trillion in previous years. Notably, in 2023, the record high of 16 trillion yuan in new fixed deposits was reached. The three-year maturity point of these medium- and long-term deposits has heightened market focus on reallocation in 2026.

The expectation of interest rate declines after high-interest funds mature also raises concerns about deposit shifting. The 2026 maturities are the last batch of long-term funds enjoying “triple-digit” interest rates—at that time, major banks’ 3-year large certificates of deposit generally exceeded 3%. If these funds face new rates of 1.2%-1.5% upon maturity, will residents “retaliate” by not saving? Meanwhile, the wealth management, fund, and insurance sectors, after years of sluggishness, also need a “fund inflow” narrative to support expansion expectations, making 2026 a natural narrative anchor.

How Much Deposits Will Mature?

In this context, a key question is: how much of residents’ fixed deposits will mature in 2026?

Based on our calculations, the total resident fixed deposit maturities for the year could reach about 76-77 trillion yuan. Our estimates are primarily derived from deep analysis of bond-issuing banks’ financial reports, using their disclosed residual maturity structures for fixed deposits (covering about 80% of the market). Historical data shows that the proportion of deposits maturing in each period has been relatively stable, with a slight upward trend in deposits maturing within one year over the past two years. Combining the 2024 annual report coverage (60%) and 2025 mid-year report coverage (62.9%), we estimate that the proportion of fixed deposits maturing within one year by the end of 2025 will further rise to about 62.5%-63.5%.

Assuming the industry-wide, sample bank, and resident deposit maturity structures are highly aligned, and based on the total fixed deposit stock of 179.6 trillion yuan at the end of 2025, approximately 112-114 trillion yuan of fixed deposits will face re-pricing in 2026; among these, resident deposits are expected to be about 76-77 trillion yuan. In absolute terms, 2026 is indeed a peak year.

The concentrated timing is noteworthy: the first quarter of 2026 may be the peak period for maturities. Deposit maturities are highly seasonal, aligning with the “opening boom” at the start of the year—Q1 typically accounts for 50%-70% of annual growth, with maturities following a “high at the front, low at the back” pattern. Based on 2024 annual reports, about 42.8% of deposits maturing within three months are part of the one-year maturity batch. Considering that deposit inflows in 2025 were more front-loaded, we estimate that the proportion of deposits maturing within three months at the end of 2025 could rise to 43%-44.5%. This suggests that in Q1 2026, resident deposit maturities could reach 32.7-34.4 trillion yuan, creating a “peak at the start” pattern.

However, from a YoY perspective, 2026’s uniqueness may be less than market intuition suggests.
Using 2024 sample bank data, the total resident fixed deposits maturing in 2025 are about 66.5 trillion yuan. The YoY increase in 2026 is estimated at 9.6-10.8 trillion yuan, with a growth rate of 14.5%-16.3%, actually lower than the 17.7% YoY growth in 2025. Even focusing on the most market-watched first quarter, the 2025 Q1 maturing amount was about 28.5 trillion yuan, with a YoY increase of about 4.2–5.9 trillion yuan in Q1 2026. Although the growth rate is relatively high historically, the overall pattern remains within normal bounds.

Essentially, the rise in maturing amounts in 2025–2026 is a mirror of the deposit surge in 2022–2023. The “excess savings” naturally convert into “excess maturing deposits” after three years. From this perspective, 2026 resembles a slowly rising “tide” rather than an abrupt “tsunami.”

The real market concern is not the size of maturing deposits but the interest rate gap faced upon renewal.
The decline in deposit rates started in 2022 and stabilized temporarily after May 2025, but the rate gap faced by different maturities upon renewal varies. For deposits maturing in 2026 of one year or less, the rate difference between old and new is limited; the main impact is on deposits of two years or more, which will reflect the previous rate cuts more directly.

For example, in major state-owned banks, the renewal rate for 2-year fixed deposits maturing in 2024 generally declined by 50–60 basis points in 2026; for 3-year deposits from 2023, the decline can reach about 135 basis points. Banks have also reduced long-term deposit products—some have delisted 5-year large certificates of deposit, and some small banks have even canceled 5-year “lump sum” products.

It’s important to note that similar rate gaps appeared in 2025, with 2- and 3-year deposits facing about 120 basis points of decline upon renewal. The pressure in 2026 is more marginal than a new surge.

Assessing Outflow Pressure Based on High-Interest Deposits
The key is the actual scale of high-interest deposits. We believe that simply inferring the original maturity structure from the current maturity profile can be misleading. For example, deposits maturing within 1–5 years mostly correspond to 2-year or longer-term deposits, but many of these will not mature in 2026, so directly extrapolating could overestimate the amount of high-interest deposits facing re-pricing.

Therefore, we use a rolling-year model with assumptions: new deposits maintain a maturity structure of 43% within 1 year, 15% at 2 years, 34% at 3 years, and 8% at 5 years, rolling over automatically upon maturity. The model indicates that at the end of 2025, about 63.4% of total fixed deposits are within 1 year remaining, consistent with the 62.9% disclosed in mid-2025 reports, validating the structure assumption.

Splitting this, the actual high-interest deposits (2 years or more) maturing in 2026 are about 24.8 trillion yuan, roughly 32.2% of total maturing deposits. Comparing with 2024’s high-interest maturing deposits (~16.8 trillion yuan) and 2025 (~20.3 trillion yuan, up 3.4 trillion), the 2026 high-interest maturing amount will increase smoothly, not abruptly.

Overall, in 2026, residents’ fixed deposits are estimated at about 77 trillion yuan, with high-interest deposits (~25 trillion yuan) representing only about 32% of total maturing deposits, and an incremental increase of about 4.6 trillion yuan from 2025. The outflow pressure in 2026 thus does indeed rise compared to 2025.

However, it’s important to note that 2025 already absorbed significant re-pricing pressures, and 2026’s changes are more a continuation than a shock. Without micro-level evidence, aggressive assumptions on outflow ratios are unwarranted. Moreover, actual renewal behavior and fund flows in 2025 provide a baseline for observing marginal changes.

What About “Moving” After Maturity?

How do actual renewal rates of 2025 maturing deposits look? Is outflow accelerating? This is a key reference for 2026.

We estimate that the renewal rate for deposits maturing in 2025 remains close to 90%. Comparing the theoretical scale of funds derived from actual flows with the final deposit increase, the retained amount and proportion of maturing fixed deposits can be inferred. Recent years show that the renewal rate of maturing deposits from the private sector has been stable at 80%-90%. Even under the pressure of concentrated re-pricing in 2025, renewal rates remain comparable to 2023 and even rebounded slightly from 2024.

Cross-validating from residents’ fund flows, the allocation between “cash and deposits” and “financial products” in 2025 is very similar to 2024, with no significant shift toward wealth management, funds, or insurance. This suggests that even as high-interest deposits mature gradually, residents’ asset allocation remains defensive and inertial, and deposit system stability is not significantly weakened.

In summary, the current reallocation process since 2023 has not accelerated markedly due to 2025’s re-pricing pressures; it is more a continuation of previous trends.

Of course, high renewal rates do not mean future reallocation impacts can be ignored. On one hand, the scale of high-interest deposits maturing in 2026 will further increase, and constraints like shrinking long-term product supply and larger rate gaps will intensify. On the other hand, if risk assets like stocks and commodities heat up further in 2026, it could influence residents’ decisions.

Additionally, with about 77 trillion yuan in fixed deposits maturing, even a 10-15% marginal outflow would become a significant marginal variable affecting market pricing. Funds flowing into insurance, funds, and other assets have already begun impacting the market during 2024-2025.

Thus, the focus shifts from “whether to renew” to “where to flow.” The 2025 phase provided a partial answer, but whether the flow structure will change in 2026—potentially shifting from low-volatility assets to risk assets—remains to be seen. The reallocation trend of the first quarter’s 32 trillion yuan maturing deposits may serve as an important observation window.