Thursday, two of China’s largest financial institutions released third quarter earnings.
As for most financial firms, the earnings statements of China Construction Bank (OTC: CICHY) and China Life Insurance (OTC: CILJF) offer useful insight into what’ going on in the world’s second-largest economy, and what investors can expect next.
China Construction Bank said that for the third quarter this year it earned a net profit of 88.145 billion RMB ($12 billion) which was a 3% improvement over the year before. That beat analysts’ expectations by a wide mark, who were forecasting a 21% drop.
Analysts weren’t just looking for profit numbers this quarter, however – much more pertinent on the balance sheets of banks is the ratio of non-performing loans to assets. Those were pretty much flat at 1.37%. The total amount of NPLs on CCB’s balance sheet was 323 billion RMB however – about 9% higher than the same period last year.
Balancing that out was an 11.5% increase in customer deposits in the period, to 2.85 trillion RMB.
Overall CCB’s financials were more robust than ...