Industrial Bank net profits up 32% in Q1

Shanghai-listed Industrial Bank Co Ltd saw a 32 percent year-on-year increase in net profits in the first quarter of 2013, according to the lender’s Q1 report. This translated into 11 billion yuan ($1.8 billion),.

The Fuzhou-based lender reported a 36 percent year-on-year increase in net profits for 2012, which was 34.7 billion yuan, the report said.

The bank said its forecasted net profit for 2013 will be 15.3 percent higher than that of 2012. The forecasted growth rate may be less than half of that in 2012.

The balance of non-performing loans (NPL) by the end of March 2013 was 6.36 billion yuan, with a rate of 0.49 percent. By the end of 2012, Industrial Bank's NPL was 5.29 billion yuan.

Analysts said lenders need to watch out for NPLs.

Industrial Bank said in its report that it will continue to strengthen its wealth management, investment banking and asset management services.

In 2012, the private banking sector of Industrial Bank saw 145 billion yuan value of issued wealth management products.