Al-Rajhi Bank and Riyad Bank posted healthy second quarter profits, statements on the Saudi bourse's websites showed. Al-Rajhi Bank made a net profit of SR1.74 billion ($464.5 million) in the three months ending June 30, 2007, up 8.2 percent from the SR1.61 billion it made in the year-earlier period. Rajhi's net investment income - the equivalent of net income from lending in traditional banking - rose 12 percent in the second quarter to SR2.14 billion. Banking services income rose 44 percent to SR577 million, it said, without giving details about other sources of revenue such as from trading and foreign exchange operations. Earnings per share at the end of the first six months of this year reached SR2.23 up from SR2.12 a year earlier, it added Riyad Bank posted a 6.8 percent rise in second-quarter profit mainly on higher lending. Fourth-biggest lender by market value, Riyad Bank clocked up profit of SR906 million, or SR1.06 per share, in the three months to June 30, compared with SR848 million, or an adjusted SR1 per share. Net operating income rose 3 percent after loans grew 44 percent.
