China Merchants Bank First-Quarter Net Profit Up 8.9% at CNY19.98 Billion

China Merchants Bank Corp. (3968.HK) said Thursday its net profit for the first quarter rose 8.9% from the previous year, buoyed by higher interest income.

China's sixth-largest commercial lender by assets said profit for the three months ended March was 19.98 billion yuan ($2.90 billion), up from CNY18.35 billion a year earlier.

Net interest income rose 1.8% to CNY34.91 billion and net fee and commission income declined 6% to CNY18.64 billion in the period, the bank said.

China Merchants Bank also reported CNY60.5 billion of nonperforming loans at end-March, down from 61.12 billion yuan at end-2016. The bank's bad-loan ratio fell to 1.76% from 1.87% at the end of last year.

--Grace Zhu

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 27, 2017 06:11 ET (10:11 GMT)