TWO of China's largest banks yesterday reported mixed earnings results for the third quarter of this year, with profit at the Agricultural Bank of China surging more than 40 percent while the Bank of China posting its slowest profit growth in nine quarters.

AgBank, the nation's largest lender by number of branches, said third-quarter profit jumped to 34.1 billion yuan (US$5.4 billion) from 24.3 billion yuan a year earlier as loans and fee income climbed, according to its statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange yesterday.

From January to September, the bank's total net profit soared nearly 44 percent from a year ago to 100.78 billion yuan.

AgBank said net interest income during the nine months jumped an annual 28.35 percent to 223.36 billion yuan while net fees and commissions rose 61.1 percent to 54.82 billion yuan.

BOC, the nation's third-largest lender by assets, said its third-quarter profit climbed 9.4 percent to 29.8 billion yuan from 27.2 billion yuan a year earlier, the bank said in a statement to the Hong Kong bourse yesterday.

For the first nine months, the bank's profit attributable to shareholder jumped 21.52 percent on an annual basis to 96.3 billion yuan.

Its net interest income in the first three quarters gained 18.82 percent year on year to 167.3 billion yuan, BOC said.

The bank said net fees and commissions rose 23 percent to 50.83 billion yuan.