Shanghai Pudong Development Bank yesterday posted a net profit leap of nearly 60 percent for the first half of the year, driven by a surge in lending and fee-based income.

Net profit at the Shanghai-based bank climbed to 2.55 billion yuan from 1.6 billion yuan a year earlier, while earnings per share rose nearly 43 percent to 0.59 yuan in the period, it said yesterday.

Analysts are upbeat on the outlook of the bank, which will serve as the nucleus of a proposed financial holding group to be set up by the government to compete with multinational banking conglomerates.

The bank said its total deposits climbed to 641.5 billion yuan in the first half of the year from 596.5 billion yuan at the end of last year, while total loans rose to 524.3 billion yuan, up 13.75 percent from 460.9 billion yuan.

Its capital adequacy ratio was 8.46 percent at the end of June, down from 9.27 percent from the end of last year, but still above the 8 percent regulatory minimum. The ratio of non-performing loans to total loans fell to 1.71 percent in June from 1.83 percent last December.

Fee-based income between January and June surged 50.96 percent to 634 million yuan from a year earlier, while operating income from its credit card business, a program it runs in partnership with Citigroup Inc, more than doubled to 68 million yuan in the period.

"The bank's performance is basically in line with our expectation," said He Sheng, a banking analyst at Changjiang Securities Co.

Shares of the Shanghai-listed bank closed 5.31 percent stronger at 49.39 yuan yesterday.

(China Daily August 23, 2007)