The group reported earnings of 2.96 rupees for the quarter. In the six months to June group earnings per share was 6.38 rupees per share on total profits of 5.319 billion rupees.
At bank level it reported return on 22.97 percent up from 20.76 percent in December 2012.
Commercial Bank's interest income grew 37 percent to 12.59 billion rupees in the quarter and interest expenses grew at a faster 54.6 billion rupees to 7.2 billion rupees but the firm managed to grow net interest income by 19 percent to 5.39 billion rupees.
Total performing loans grew 12.72 percent to 301 billion rupees from December 2011 to June 2012.
Group provisions for bad debts rose to 576 million rupees from a write back of 19.1 million rupees a year earlier.
Total non-performing loans rose 14.4 percent to 18.1 billion rupees during the six months to June 2012.
At bank level gross non-performing loans rose to 3.66 percent of advances up from 3.43 percent in December.
Rising bad debts are also a natural result of a soft-pegged balance of payments crisis.
If the central bank continues sterilized foreign exchange sales for long enough without floating, interest rates can rise and remain at level high enough to trigger a fully-fledged banking crisis as well, with large volumes of bad loans piling up.
Fee income rose 80 percent to 2.69 billion rupees with foreign exchange income rocketing 291 percent to 1.53 billion rupees, amid a balance of payments crisis triggered by sterilized foreign exchange sales which increased the volatility of Sri Lanka's soft-dollar peg.
Group gross assets rose 11 percent to 489 billion rupees from December to June while net assets rose 9.8 percent to 48.9 billion rupees. At group level Commercial Bank said it had core capital adequacy of 11.00 percent down from 12.11 percent in December.
Total capital adequacy also fell from 13.01 percent to 12.24 percent in the same period.
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