China Merchants Bank expects profit rise 15% in 2018

BEIJING - China Merchants Bank, one of the largest lenders in China, reported rapid profit growth last year with better asset quality.

The bank's net profit attributable to shareholders jumped 14.84 percent year-on-year to 80.56 billion yuan ($11.86 billion), the company said in its preliminary earnings estimates filed with the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

The company's operating income increased by 12.57 percent to 248.66 billion yuan last year.

The bank's non-performing loan ratio came in at 1.36 percent, down 0.25 percentage points compared with the end of 2017.

The results are subject to auditing and could be different from the final data. It's expected that the deviations will not exceed 10 percent, the bank said.