Profits of China's five major banks rise in Q1

China's top five state-owned banks, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), Agricultural Bank of China (ABC), Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Bank of Communications, posted stable profit growth of 1.68 percent year on year in the first quarter.

Profits of the five banks totaled 267.5 billion yuan (about 38.8 billion U.S dollars) in Q1, official data showed.

ICBC posted profit volume of 75.786 billion yuan, leading all four lenders in amount, while given the profit growth from a year earlier, China Construction Bank led with an increase of 3.03 percent.

Despite slight profit growth on the back of business restructuring, the asset quality of the banks was up in the January-March period. They managed to control bad loan rates, with ICBC's bad loan rate edging down 0.03 percentage points and ABC down 0.04 percentage points compared with the end of last year.

It is also the first time that the gains of China Merchants Bank (CMB), one of the country's biggest joint stock commercial banks, surpassed the Bank of Communication.

The CMB posted Q1 profits totalling 19.977 billion yuan, 654 million yuan higher than Bank of Communications's net profits for the same period. Endi