BEIJING, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd. (ICBC) on Thursday reported a 61.4 percent year-on-year increase in its first-half profit after tax.

    For the Jan-June period, ICBC's profit after tax rose to 41.4 billion yuan (5.45 billion U.S. dollars) under international accounting rules.

    Higher net interest margin and rising fee and commission income were the main reason for ICBC's strong performance, according to the bank's half-year report.

    By the end of June, the bank's capital adequacy ratio, the ratio of its own capital to its outstanding loans, was 13.7 percent, and its non-performing loan ratio was 3.29 percent, down from 3.79 percent at the end of last year.

    The bank had 8,301.2 billion yuan in total assets, up 10.6 percent from the end of last year.

    Earnings per share stood at 0.12 yuan.

    ICBC was simultaneously listed in Shanghai and Hong Kong in October last year, raising 21.9 billion U.S. dollars, exceeding the previous record of 18.4 billion U.S. dollars by Japan's NTT DoCoMo in 1998.

ICBC denies hacker attacks slow down its system

    BEIJING, Aug. 15 (Xinhua) -- The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) has issued a denial of rumors that its official website and trading system had been hacked on Wednesday.

    The e-banking transaction speed of the ICBC's website became so slow that clients experienced severe difficulties in logging on to their on-line accounts.

ICBC to add loans for small enterprises to 500 bln yuan

    BEIJING, July 26 (Xinhua)-- The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC), China's largest commercial bank, plans to further explore the burgeoning small enterprise market by offering loans of between 400 to 500 billion yuan to small enterprises over the next three to five years.

    Li Xiaopeng, Vice President of ICBC, announced the plan at a high-level symposium on financing for small enterprises in Beijing on Thursday.

ICBC tops Citigroup as world's No.1 bank

   BEIJING, July 25 -- A leap in the shares of Industrial & Commercial Bank of China on Monday made it the world's biggest bank by market capitalization, overtaking U.S. giant Citigroup.

    ICBC's Shanghai-listed A shares surged 2.68 percent to 5.75 yuan (US$0.76), giving it a market capitalization of US$254 billion, according to Reuters calculations.