CHISINAU (Moldova), October 23 (SeeNews) - Moldovan commercial bank FinComBank said on Monday its net profit for the first nine months of 2006 rose by 5.3% year-on-year to 19.7 million lei ($1.5 million/1.2 million euro).

FinComBank's credit portfolio rose to 694.8 million lei in the first nine months of 2006 from 510.2 million lei a year earlier. Deposits rose by 25.8% on the year to 743.9 million lei at the end-September.

The growth rate of the bank's credit portfolio through September was higher than an average rate for Moldova's banking system, the head of FinComBank's marketing department Alexandr Bobarykin told SeeNews.

He added that FinComBank was the fourth bank in Moldova in terms of annual growth rate of the loan portfolio in the period.

FinComBank's assets rose to 1.03 billion lei at the end of September from 819.3 million lei a year earlier.

Bobarykin said that the bank FinComBank added 6,500 new clients in the first nine months of the year. The bank had 58,900 clients at the end of September, including 5,209 companies, he said.