Corrects inal paragraph: switching 1.24% with 1.23% and changed word "up" to "down"
AgBank leads China's top five banks in net profit growth
NIM largely steady for all five lenders
NPL ratios largely steady for top five
By Ziyi Tang and Engen Tham
BEIJING/SHANGHAI, March 30 (Reuters) - Agricultural Bank of China 1288.HK 601288.SS reported on Monday a 3.18% rise in net profit for 2025, the fastest growth among the country's top five lenders. AgBank's annual net profit hit 291.041 billion yuan ($42.11 billion) while Bank of China (BoC) 601988.SS, 3988.HK reported a 2.18% rise for 2025.
The two lenders performed a little better than three of China's other largest banks which reported nearly flat annual profits on Friday as the world's second-largest economy reels from a deepening property sector debt crisis amid a prolonged slowdown.
BoC's net interest margin $(NIM)$ a gauge of profitability - was flat at the end of December from the end of the prior quarter, while AgBank's slipped slightly to 1.28% at the end of last year from 1.30% at the end of September. Both were largely inline with the other top three lenders.
Bankers and analysts expect the contraction in NIMs to further slow this year.
"Deposit repricing will lead to a decrease in deposit interest rates, which will have a positive impact on our bank's stable net interest margin," BoC's Vice President Yang Jun told a post-earnings press conference.
"The contraction in NIM should ease in 2026, as we expect it comes to the tail-end of the interest rate-cut cycle," said Elaine Xu, a director at Fitch Ratings.
AgBank's non-performing loan ratio was flat at the end of last year from the end of the previous quarter, while BoC's ticked slightly down to 1.23% at the end of December from 1.24% at the end of September.
($1 = 6.9119 Chinese yuan renminbi)
(Reporting by Ziyi Tang and Engen Tham; Editing by Christopher Cushing and Susan Fenton)
((Ziyi.Tang@thomsonreuters.com;))
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