Malaysian Public Bank Bhd's pre-tax profit for the first quarter (Q1) ended March 31, 2016 rose by 10.9% to RM1.65 billion from RM1.49 billion in the same quarter last year.

    Its revenue increased to RM5.04 billion from RM4.60 billion previously, it said in a filing to Bursa Malaysia today. Public Bank said the higher pre-tax profit was driven by the healthy growth in loans and customer deposits coupled with sustained strong asset quality, according to Malaysia's (Bernama) News Agency. 

    The revenue increase was due to higher net interest income, higher income from Islamic banking business and non-interest income, it said. The bank said gross loans grew by 9.5% to RM277.2 billion compared with RM253.1 billion previously, driven by the growth in property and passenger vehicle financing and lending to small and medium enterprises. 

    Total deposits from customers rose by 7.4% to RM306.6 billion, it said. It said the retail operations' pre-tax profit increased by two per cent to RM834 million. 

    Corporate lending's pre-tax profit rose by 17.2% to RM119.3 million and fund management's pre-tax profit increased by 0.2% to RM135.9 million. Pre-tax profit for the group's overseas operations increased by 18.9 per cent to RM156.3 million mainly due to favourable foreign exchange differences.