Ukraine's bank profits up in first quarter

The combined net profits of Ukraine's banks rose 74 percent year-on-year to 375 million U.S. dollars in the first quarter, a senior central bank official said Wednesday."Overcoming the negative effects of the global financial crisis, the banking system of Ukraine shows a profitable activity for the second year in a row," Natalia Ivanenko, a regulator at the National Bank of Ukraine, said at a news conference.The good performance was primarily driven by increased customer deposits, which rose by 2.5 billion dollars in January-March, Ivanenko added.The official also said the total asset base of Ukrainian banks rose by over 2 billion dollars during the same perio