China Everbright Bank profit up 41% in Q1

BEIJING - China Everbright Bank's profit jumped 41 percent year on year to reach 6.86 billion yuan ($1.07 billion) for the first quarter of the year, the mid-sized lender said in a statement filed to the Shanghai Stock Exchange.

The bank attributed the profit growth to the expansion of its business scale and an increase in net interest income, according to the statement.

In the first three months, the lender's earnings per share rose 42 percent to 0.17 yuan. Its operating revenue surged 35 percent to 15 billion yuan, the statement said.

By the end of March, the lender's capital adequacy ratio, which measures a bank's ability to deal with risk assets, stood at 10.67 percent, up 0.1 percentage point from the end of 2011. Its core capital adequacy ratio rose 0.22 percentage points to 8.11 percent, the statement said.

The bank's non-performing loan ratio remained unchanged at 0.64 percent at the end of March compared to the beginning of 2012, the statement said.