SHANGHAI: Shanghai Pudong Development Bank yesterday posted a net profit leap of nearly 60 percent for the first half of the year, driven by a surge in lending and fee-based income.

Net profit at the Shanghai-based bank climbed to 2.55 billion yuan from 1.6 billion yuan a year earlier, while earnings per share rose nearly 43 percent to 0.59 yuan in the period, it said yesterday.

Analysts are upbeat on the outlook of the bank, which will serve as the nucleus of a proposed financial holding group to be set up by the government to compete with multinational banking conglomerates.