Bank of China net profit up 8% in 2014

Bank of China said Wednesday it saw a year-on-year net profit gain of eight percent in 2014 helped by stable growth in the Chinese economy, despite a slow recovery in global markets.

But the bank, which is the nation's third-largest lender by market value, also saw a doubling of losses on loans and advances.

It recorded a net profit of 169.60 billion yuan ($27.29 billion) last year, up 8.08 percent from 156.91 billion yuan in 2013, it said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange.

"In 2014, global economies exhibited uneven recovery, and growth momentum remained dampened," it said in the filing, adding that the Chinese economy "remained stable".

The country's GDP growth of 7.4 percent last year was the slowest in nearly a quarter of a century, prompting the government to loosen monetary policy in an attempt to boost the economy.

"The (Chinese) government will continue to adopt a proactive fiscal policy and a prudent monetary policy, improve financing and credit structures," the lender said.

The central People's Bank of China has cut interest rates twice since November, while also reducing the reserve requirement ratio -- the percentage of funds banks must hold in reserve -- in a bid to increase lending.

Bank of China saw losses on loans and advances rise to 46.61 billion yuan, an increase of more than 100 percent from 2013, according to the filing.

"Bad loans remain the biggest concern this year," Castor Pang, Core Pacific-Yamaichi?s head of research told Bloomberg News.

The majority state-owned bank saw net interest income rise 13.23 percent to 321.1 billion yuan compared to the same period last year.

Non-interest income from credit cards and wealth management sales were up 9.12 percent at 135.2 billion yuan.

The bank's fourth quarter results were slightly higher than analysts' expectations, according to Bloomberg.