China Bank nets P2.35B in H1

MANILA, Philippines—Tycoon Henry Sy’s China Banking Corp. grew its first-semester net profit by 11.4 percent year on year to P2.35 billion on higher earnings from lending and trading activities.

This bottom line translated to a return on equity of 14.9 percent, which the bank said was driven by improvements in the bank’s core operations as well as increased contributions from bancassurance, or cross-selling of insurance products using bank channels.

Net interest income for the first semester rose by 4.3 percent to P4.41 billion as gross loans surged by 20 percent to P124.46 billion from a year ago.

At the same time, trading gains grew by 30.8 percent to P459 million from a year ago.

China Bank’s total resources stood at P231.3 billion as of end-June.

On asset quality, its non-performing loan ratio improved to 3.4 percent from 4.3 percent at end-2010.