BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s Bank of Communications Co Ltd (BoCom) reported a 4.5% rise in fourth-quarter net profit on Thursday. The second of the country’s biggest lenders to post earnings this week, China’s sixth-largest commercial bank by assets reported a net profit of 24.3 billion yuan ($3.53 billion), up from 23.2 billion yuan a year earlier, Reuters calculations showed. Full-year profit rose 5.2% to 92.1 billion yuan, above an estimate of 85.87 billion yuan from a Refinitiv poll of 12 analysts.
In line with results from China Construction Bank Corp on Wednesday, both lenders reported falling net interest margins (NIM), a key gauge of bank profitability.
“NIM pressure and pockets of risks in the property sector and some weak SOEs remain the main challenges,” said Ming Tan, a director at S&P Global Ratings.
Non-performing loan ratios shrunk at both lenders.
($1 = 6.8782 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Ziyi Tang and Engen Tham; editing by Bernadette Baum and Jason Neely)
