China Construction Bank records 6.08% rise in net profit

China Construction Bank Corporation announced on Tuesday its net profit grew by 6.08 percent year-on-year in the first half of this year.

While profitability continued to maintain a good momentum, the bank's asset quality has been steadily improving. As of the end of June, its non-performing loan balance was 198.75 billion yuan ($29 billion), and the NPL ratio dropped by 1 basis point from the end of last year to 1.48 percent.

The bank's net interest margin - the difference between interest paid and interest earned - increased by 20 basis points year-on-year to 2.34 percent, thanks to targeted reserve requirement ratio cuts by China's central bank, improved returns on assets, and a consistent optimization of the asset and liability structure, said CCB in an announcement of its 2018 interim results.

The second-largest State-owned commercial lender by assets in China constantly optimized its credit structure so that the asset quality remained stable.

It strictly implemented the list management, with a loan balance of 127.98 billion yuan for serious overcapacity industries and a loan balance of 360.12 billion yuan for real estate development, mainly supporting high-quality real estate clients and ordinary commodity housing projects.

To support the development of the real economy - the part of the economy that produces goods and services - the net amount of loans and advances to CCB customers increased by 494.01 billion yuan, or 3.93 percent, since the end of last year.

Housing leasing is one of the major strategies that CCB's operations and innovation focused on in the first half of 2018, in addition to fintech and inclusive finance.

The bank took the lead to introduce comprehensive housing rental solutions in the banking sector. So far, the bank has signed housing leasing cooperation agreements with more than 300 cities at prefecture level and above. It has cooperated with 1,500 enterprises in the leasing market, and its housing rental service platform has accumulated more than 350,000 apartments online and rented nearly 90,000.