Saudi's NCB posts 30% rise

Saudi Arabia's National Commercial Bank said on Friday that its first-quarter profit rose 30 percent from a year earlier. Net income increased to SR1.95bn ($520m) from SR1.5bn compared to the same period in 2011, the Riyadh-based lender said in a statement. Sheikh Abdullah Bahamdan, chairman of NCB, said the bank's strategy to diversify its sources of revenue had contributed to an increase in fee income from banking services by 29 percent. Bahamdan added that the bank's total assets grew 4.9 percent to reach SR314bn. Loans and advances increased to SR142bn compared to SR125bn at the end of the same period of the previous year, an increase of 14 percent. Customer deposits grew to SR248bn, an increase of 3.6 percent compared to the sames period last year, the statement added.