A view of the Lujiazui area in Shanghai Photo: VCG

 
The recovery of China's capital market has sparked growing interest among investors, leading to an increase in client traffic at brokerage branches. Meanwhile, commercial banks are stepping up efforts to promote bank-securities services, aiming to attract investors, according to media reports. 

A securities account manager surnamed Zhao told the Global Times on Tuesday that the market has been performing well recently, with the Shanghai Composite Index surpassing 3,700 points, attracting a significant number of new accounts.

The Shanghai Composite Index closed at 3,727.29 points on Tuesday. The benchmark was up 0.85 percent at 3,728.03 points on Monday after hitting an intra-day high of 3,745.94 points, its highest level since August 2015 and a near-decade high.

Li Zhengying, general manager of Industrial Securities' Shanghai Jinling East Road branch, said that the branch opened more than a dozen accounts in a single morning, with a notable rise in younger clients, and saw a 400 percent surge in account openings in July compared with June due to the positive market trend, CCTV reported on Tuesday.

A Shanghai investor surnamed Cao came to the above-mentioned securities branch to open a new account, saying that his returns for the year have been quite good and he remains confident. He noted that the cumulative returns from the first half of the year to now are about 20 percent, adding that he hopes to catch some more gains in the second half, according to the CCTV report. 

The stock market acts as a barometer of the national economy, with its recent performance closely linked to the stable development of the macroeconomy. This uptrend is also a reflection of a series of favorable policies implemented earlier, Li Changan, a professor at the Academy of China Open Economy Studies at the University of International Business and Economics, told the Global Times on Tuesday. 

Li noted that this market upswing significantly enhances economic expectations, boosting confidence in both the macroeconomy and the stock market. As a result, more investors are being drawn to participate, with the potential for profits being the most direct reason for the recent increase in new account openings.

Moreover, the rise in new accounts signals potential inflows of fresh capital, which could improve market liquidity and enhance overall market dynamics, according to Liu Chunsheng, an associate professor at the Central University of Finance and Economics, the Economic View reported.

In July, the number of new A-share accounts reached 1.96 million, up about 71 percent year-on-year, and more than 19 percent month-on-month, according to the CCTV report. 

In addition, multiple domestic banks have been promoting securities company account opening activities on the homepages of their mobile banking apps. Banks like Bank of China, China Merchants Bank, and Industrial Bank prominently promote securities and fund account openings on their mobile app homepages with scrolling tickers and headline ads, stcn.com reported on August 13. 

Lou Feipeng, a research fellow at the Postal Savings Bank of China, was quoted in the CCTV report as saying that this facilitates easier securities account opening and investment for clients, allowing them to share in the stock market's growth dividends. For brokerages, leveraging bank channels to provide convenient and fast services like account opening and fund transfers helps attract more investors. 

Chinese authorities have been ramping up efforts to boost the domestic capital market. 

A Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Political Bureau meeting held in July emphasized that the attractiveness and inclusiveness of domestic capital markets should be further enhanced, the Xinhua News Agency reported.  

The China Securities Regulatory Commission also held a meeting in July to deploy work tasks for the second half of 2025, focusing on key aspects such as stabilizing the momentum of the recovery, deepening reforms to spur market vitality, strengthening supervision and risk prevention and promoting high-level institutional opening-up.