OREANDA-NEWS. November 07, 2011. Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Limited (Stock Code SH: 601398; HK: 1398) announced its results for the nine-month period ending September 30, 2011. According to the International Financial Reporting Standards, in the first three quarters of 2011, ICBC recorded a profit after tax of RMB 164 billion, up 28.31% over the same period last year. Earnings per share were RMB 0.47, reported the press-centre of ICBC.

The Bank has consistently improved its asset quality while maintaining steady growth in operating performance in all business lines. Balance and percentage of ICBC non-performing loans are "both go down". At the end of September, balance of non-performing loans was RMB 4.051 billion less over end of previous year. Non-performing loan rate slid 0.17 percentage point to 0.91% from the prior year-end, a percentage on par with global peers. Provision coverage rate soared 44.46 percentage points over the end of 2010 to reach an impressive 272.66%, demonstrating the significant boost to the Bank's risk capabilities.

In the third quarter of 2011, ICBC maintained its momentum in the first half of the year. In deposit business, the Bank's customer deposits rose nearly RMB 1 trillion from end of 2010 to RMB 12.14 trillion at the end of September this year, up 7.64% when compared to the same period last year. ICBC holds on to be the world No.1 deposit bank by securing "double No.1" in existing and new deposits from customers. In loan business, ICBC has achieved balanced growth in total credit outlay. During the first three quarters of 2011, the total amount of RMB loans outstanding in all domestic branches increased RMB 605.8 billion, a 9.8% jump over the end of previous year. In extending loans to borrowers, the proportion of loans to local government financing vehicles continued to decrease when compared against first half of 2011, while the loans to small enterprises, trade finance and personal loans maintained a brisk growth.

At the end of September, the Bank's outstanding small-business loans increased RMB 174.7 billion from the prior year-end, up by 37.0%, or RMB 58.5 billion, from the same period a year earlier, representing 4.4 times the increase of all corporate loans. The proportion of new loans to small enterprises has accounted for 44% of total new corporate loans. Trade finance balance edged up RMB 193.7 billion from end of 2010.

Trade finance solutions are good alternative to conventional liquidity loan shown by its rising proportion to 36.5% of total liquidity loans. ICBC's balance of personal loans rose RMB 204.6 billion from the prior year-end, where 72% of the loans were non-housing loans such as personal business loans or personal consumer loans. These ICBC loans have provided strong support to the growth of micro enterprises, small enterprises, individual industrial and commercial households, as well as the retail consumption.

ICBC has also maintained a diversified and balanced growth in the intermediary businesses on the back of its solid customer base, highly efficient distribution network, diversified product offering, strong capacity in service and innovation. ICBC registered a 43.49% increase from the same period a year earlier to RMB 78.3 billion in net fee and commission income for the first three quarters of 2011, contributing 22.47% to the Bank's operating income and representing a 3.34 percentage point jump from 2010. The Bank's income structure has been notably improved. With a year-on-year revenue growth of 46.9% to RMB 17.74 billion, investment banking has become one major source of the Bank's intermediary business income.

Net worth of assets under ICBC custody reached RMB 3.4 trillion, an 18.9% increase since January 2011. ICBC is now the only custodian bank in China with over RMB 3 trillion of assets under custody. ICBC has issued 400 million bank cards, of which 72.28 million were credit cards, a jump of 13.6% since early 2011. The total volume of transactions conducted using ICBC bank cards went up by 58.9% from the same period a year earlier to RMB 697.9 billion. ICBC topped the league table both in the number of bank cards issued and the cardholder expenditure volume. Volume of precious metal traded via ICBC was a staggering 129,000 tons, 5.3 times as much as for the whole of 2010. Number of private banking customers grew 23% from the beginning of 2011 to 22,000. Assets under ICBC management rose 20% from early 2011 to RMB 425.4 billion.

In the third quarter, the new progress made by ICBC in escalating its global presence was worthy of note. On August 5, ICBC reached agreement with South Africa Standard Bank Group on the sale and purchase of Standard Bank Argentina. On September 15, the Mumbai Branch of ICBC started operating in India's Mumbai, the economic and financial center, marking the only branch from Chinese Mainland in India. At the end of September, ICBC has a global network of 234 overseas subsidiaries in 31 countries/regions spreading over five continents of Asia, Africa, Europe, America and Australia. While expanding internationally, ICBC helps overseas subsidiaries gear up for more challenging global competitiveness to meet the demand of financial services from the customers for their fast growth worldwide. ICBC's global advance is marked by its strong momentum in scale, quality and efficiency. At the end of September, all ICBC overseas subsidiaries have total assets of USD 122.74 billion. They have significantly improved their profitability by posting a year-on-year pre-tax profit growth of 38.7% to USD 780 million in the January to September period.