World Expo a Boost to Shanghai's Global Financial Center Goal

China Merchants Bank, the country's six largest lender, said late Wednesday its net profit jumped 40.42 percent year on year to 5.909 billion yuan (865 million U.S. dollars) in the first three months of 2010.

In a statement filed with the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the lender said its assets totaled 2.199 trillion yuan (322 billion U.S. dollars) at the end of March while liabilities amounted to 2.081 trillion yuan (304.7 billion U.S. dollars).

According to the bank's quarterly report, most of its 15.62 billion yuan (2.28 billion U.S. dollars) operating revenue during the Jan-March period came from interest income, which stood at 12.514 billion yuan (1.83 billion U.S. dollars), up 32 percent from a year ago.

By the end of March, the lender registered a non-performing loan (NPL) rate of 0.74 percent with bad loans of 9.376 billion yuan (1.37 billion U.S. dollars).

The bank's capital adequacy ratio rose to 11.53 percent by the end of March, up 1.08 percentage points from the end of 2009, thanks to its rights offering in A-shares market in Shanghai Stock Exchange.