BEIJING: Agricultural Bank of China Ltd (AgBank) posted a 6 percent rise in third-quarter net profit.
The last of China’s five biggest listed banks to report quarterly earnings, AgBank followed the others in showing a rise in its non-performing loan ratio as the country’s economic slowdown hurts borrowers.
Net profit rose 6 percent to 48.4 billion yuan ($7.92 billion) in the quarter, according to the bank’s unaudited financial statements filed on Thursday. That was slightly below the average forecast of 50.4 billion yuan in a Reuters poll of analysts.
AgBank’s non-performing loan ratio increased to 1.29 percent at the end of September compared with 1.24 percent at end-June.
China’s bad loan levels were at 1.08 percent at the end of June, according to official data, the highest ratio since 2011.
