Saudi Arabia's National Commercial Bank said on Friday that its first-quarter profit rose 30 percent from a year earlier. Net income increased to SR1.95 billion ($520 million) from SR1.5 billion compared to the same period in 2011, the Riyadh-based lender said in a statement. Sheikh Abdullah Bahamdan, chairman of NCB, said the bank's strategy to diversify its sources of revenue had contributed to an increase in fee income from banking services by 29 percent. He added that the bank's total assets grew 4.9 percent to reach SR314 billion. Loans and advances increased to SR142 billion compared to SR125 billion at the end of the same period of the previous year, an increase of 14 percent. Customer deposits grew to SR248 billion, an increase of 3.6 percent compared to the same period last year.
