Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), the country's largest lender, said profits in the past nine months increased largely because of more interest income despite the malaise from the global financial crisis.

ICBC's net income totaled 92.7 billion yuan (US$13.54 billion) from January to September, up 46.03 percent from the same period last year. Net earnings per share were 0.28 yuan, according to its quarterly report released late on Friday.

Net income in the third quarter climbed to 28.2 billion yuan, up 25.5 percent from the same period last year.

The report said all businesses in ICBC performed well, which ensured the lender's strong performance.

Through September, total assets hit more than 9.38 trillion yuan, up 8.06 percent from the end of last year. In nine months ICBC recorded its net interest income at 196.6 billion yuan, up 23.08 percent. Fee and commission income advanced 27.9 percent to 34.58 billion yuan, according to the report.

The amount of ICBC's bad loans stood at 104.9 billion yuan through September. That was 6.9 billion yuan less than the end of last year. The bad loan rate was 2.37 percent, down 0.37 percentage points from the end of last year.

The lender held US$1.2 million of subprime residential mortgage-backed securities and US$605 million of Alt-A residential mortgage-backed securities.

In addition, the company had US$152 million in bonds issued by Lehman Brothers and nearly US$1.676 billion in bonds by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

(Xinhua News Agency October 26, 2008)