The Bank of China, the country's third-largest lender by market value,?Tuesday said its first-quarter net profit rose 41 percent from a year ago on expanded trading activities, growing interest income and higher commission fees.

Net profit in the first three months surged to 26.23 billion yuan (US$3.84 billion) after tax from 18.57 billion yuan a year earlier, the bank said.

Interest income rose 20.8 percent to 44.51 billion yuan in the period, while non-interest income rose 69.1 percent to 23.05 billion yuan, mostly due to business expansion.

Total assets reached 9.72 trillion yuan by the end of March, up 11.1 percent from three months ago.

Yuan-denominated deposits totaled 5.93 trillion yuan at the end of the quarter, up 617.4 billion yuan from the end of 2009. Outstanding yuan-denominated loans increased 254.6 billion yuan to 3.76 trillion yuan.

The non-performing loan ratio was 1.3 percent at the end of March, 0.22 percentage points lower than the end of 2009, with outstanding NPLs at 69.04 billion yuan.

The bank's core capital adequacy ratio was 9.11 percent on March 31, up from 9.07 percent at the end of 2009.