China’s big 4 state banks all saw increased profits in 2017, meeting market expectations that a strong economy and the deleveraging drive would help turn around two years of sluggish earnings.
Yesterday Bank of China, the country’s fourth-largest lender by assets, posted net profit figures of RMB172.4 billion ($27.4 billion), a welcome 4.8% increase for the year compared with 2016’s 3.7% profit decline, reports the Wall Street Journal.
China’s other three largest banks lenders also released higher profit growth earlier this week. Industrial & Commercial Bank of China’s net profits grew by 2.8% in 2017 from 0.4% the year before, while China Construction Bank and Agricultural Bank of China both hit nearly 5% growth last year from under 2%.
The big 4 state banks are expected to have benefitted from Beijing’s clampdown on irresponsible lending and shadow banking, which forced smaller lenders to pay higher short-term interest rates to their larger counterparts.
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