(Beijing) – The amount of assets managed by Chinese brokerage firms soared last year, exceeding 1.2 trillion yuan by the end of December, up from 280 billion yuan at the beginning of the year, data from the industry group Securities Association of China shows.

However, most of those assets – 80 to 90 percent of the total according to some analysts' estimates – was tied to banks and had nothing to do with the brokers' investment ability.