China Everbright Bank reported a net profit of 3.43 billion yuan (502 million U.S. dollars) in the first half, down 46.99 percent year on year, said a statement on the bank's website Tuesday.

The bank's outstanding loans soared 31.6 percent to 616.5 billion yuan since January, while its non-performing loan (NPL) narrowed by 640 million yuan to 8.73 billion yuan as of the end of June.

The NPL rate of the bank was 1.42 percent, down 0.58 percentage points from the beginning of the year, the bank said.

The bank's intermediary business netted 1.9 billion yuan, up 59.1 percent year on year, amounting to 16 percent of its total revenue, which stood at 11.73 billion yuan.

The release shows that the bank's gross assets totaled 1.03 trillion yuan as of the end of June.

The bank submitted its application for an initial public offering of subsidiary Everbright Securities Co., Ltd. to the China Securities Regulatory Commission last month and the IPO was launched on July 27.

(Xinhua News Agency August 11, 2009)