Shenzhen Development Bank, one of China's 10 listed commercial banks, reported net profits up 129 percent to 535 million yuan (70 million U.S. dollars) in the first quarter of the year, company sources said on Saturday.

The bank's earnings per share stood at 0.27 yuan, and its return-on-equity at 31.2 percent, 13 percentage points higher than the same period of last year.

The sources said the fast growth was largely due to higher interest income.

Between January and March, the Shenzhen-listed bank garnered 652 million yuan (85 million U.S. dollars) in interest earnings, up 44 percent year-on-year.

At the end of March, the midsized bank had 14.8 billion yuan (1.9 billion U.S. dollars) of non-performing loans on its books, 224 million yuan (29.1 million U.S. dollars) more than the level at the end of last year. However, its NPL ratio went down from 7.99 percent to 7.68 percent.

Source: Xinhua