Quarterly Profit

May 06, 2008 (LBO) – Sri Lanka's Commercial Bank's group profits grew 11.4 percent to 1,024 million rupees in the March quarter with revenue growing 37.7 percent, accounts filed with the stock exchange showed. Group revenue was up 37.7 percent to 10.2 billion rupees and interest expense grew 49.7 percent to 5.89 billion while net interest income increased at a slower 23 percent to 2.99 billion during the same period.

Income from foreign exchange trading was up 38 percent to 526.1 million and other income of the group increased 20.6 percent to 774.7 million rupees.

"This increase (in other income) was mainly due to growth in fee-based income of the Bank in 2008," Commercial Bank said in a statement.

The provision for bad debt tripled to 284.6 million, from 71.1 million one year back.

The increase in the provisions was, "due to a general provision of 150.6 million made in the first quarter of 2008, as stipulated by the new provisioning requirements of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka," the bank said.

Total deposits for quarter ended march stood at 186 billion rupees, up 1.64 percent and total assets increased 3.93 percent to 278.9 billion.

The company's shareholder funds were up 4.27 p