Bank Central Asia third quarter profit up 42% to $323.35 mn

Bank Central Asia (BCA), Indonesia's No. 3 lender, on Monday said its third quarter 2011 net profit rose 42 percent from a year ago, driven by strong loan growth.

The firm's third quarter net profit was 2.86 trillion rupiah ($323.35 million), compared with 2.01 trillion rupiah ($227.25 million) in the same period a year earlier, the lender said in a statement.

BCA, controlled by the nation's wealthiest business empire the Djarum Group, plans to expand its reach into the mortgage and securities business as it sees loan growth in housing could rise more than 35 percent this year to outpace overall loan growth of about 20 percent.

It reported nine-month 2011 net interest income of 12.37 trillion rupiah ($1.40 billion), compared with net interest income of 9.48 trillion rupiah ($1.07 billion) in the year-ago period.

Analysts' forecast BCA's 2011 net profit will rise 14 percent to 9.72 trillion rupiah ($1.1 billion), according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

View the full story in Reuters.