China Merchants Bank, the country's biggest non-state lender, posted a more than 50 percent rise in its 2006 net profit.

The bank's non-performing loan ratio dropped to 2.12 percent last year, and its capital-adequacy ratio reached 11.44 percent, according to the copy of the speech seen by Reuters. 

The Hong Kong and Shanghai-listed company has not officially made public its 2006 results, although it said in January earnings could rise 50 percent last year -- indicating earnings would be at least $758 million.

Total assets of the lender, based in the southern Chinese boomtown of Shenzhen, jumped nearly 30 percent to almost 1 trillion yuan at the end of last year.

The number of the company's credit cards has topped 10 million, and the company earned about 100 million yuan from the credit card business in 2006, it said, adding that the bank commanded more than a third of China's credit card market.

China Merchants Bank, which began issuing credit cards in 2002, has said the total number of its credit cards would reach 15 million by the end of this year.

Credit cards have only just started to be used widely in China, mostly in larger cities. Competition for the business has been heating up in China as domestic and foreign banks scramble to expand the business.