China Merchants bank's profit growth slows

China Merchants Bank (CMB), a leading commercial bank, saw net profits up 14.42 percent year on year in 2013, down from 25.31 percent in 2012, according to preliminary data released Saturday. The bank's total profits for 2013 stood at 51.8 billion yuan (8.48 billion U.S. dollars), the bank said in an unaudited business statement filed with the Shanghai Stock Exchange. Its revenues surged 17.02 percent from a year earlier to 132.66 billion yuan, while its total assets amounted to 4.02 trillion yuan, an increase of 17.85 percent from a year ago, the lender said. The bank's non-performing loan ratio went up 0.22 percentage point to 0.83 percent at the end of 2013, it said. In the statement, the bank did not specify why profit growth slowed, but the rate was in line with data for the whole banking industry released Thursday by the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC), China's banking regulator. The CBRC said commercial banks earned total profits of 1.42 trillion last year, up 14.5 percent from a year earlier. Growth also fell short of the 19-percent growth reported for 2012. Analysts attributed the slower profit growth to relatively weak economic growth momentum, the rising cost of capital as interest rates became more market-oriented, as well as the impact from Internet finance providers. In terms of revenues, the CMB was China's seventh-largest commercial lender and ranked 72nd in a list of top-500 Chinese companies for 2013 compiled by the China Enterprise Confederation and the China Enterprise Directors Association.