The Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) said on Wednesday that its intermediate business rose 64 percent last year to 25.3 billion yuan (about 3.54 billion U.S. dollars).

The surge was largely driven by commissions for the sale of such finance products as funds, the bank announced in Beijing.

Commission revenues jumped 209 percent year-on-year in 2007 thanks to the booming capital market, ABC said. Traditional intermediate business, including banking card, transaction and insurance sales, surged 22 percent year-on-year to 13.7 billion yuan. The bank didn't disclose total revenues.

However, ABC's intermediate business income accounted for only about 21 percent of the big four state commercial banks' total, sources said. ABC is the only non-listed bank among the big four, whose other members are the China Construction Bank, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the Bank of China.

Non-interest income usually accounts for at least 50 percent of bank revenues in developed countries and the proportion can reach 70-80 percent for some banks.

However, Chinese banks depend heavily on the margins between deposits and loans.

In mid-2007, the ratio of intermediate business income against total revenue for large and medium-sized banks stood at about 17 percent, according to the China Banking Regulatory Commission.

(Xinhua News Agency February 27, 2008)