JEDDAH: Saudi Arabia’s National Commercial Bank posted a 1.7 percent rise in fourth-quarter net profit.

The lender made a net profit of SR1.83 billion ($487.6 million) in the three months to December 31, compared to SR1.79 billion in the same period of 2013, it said in a bourse statement.

This was below the average forecast of three analysts polled by Reuters, who had predicted a quarterly profit of SR1.94 billion.

It attributed the rise in quarterly profit to increase in operating income, which gained 10 percent to SR4.03 billion.

It is the first time the lender has posted earnings since it completed the largest-ever initial public offer of shares in the Arab world in November, raising SR22.5 billion.

Its net profit for 2014 was SR8.66 billion, a 10.2 percent increase on the previous year.

Saudi Arabian banks have so far appeared to largely shrug off the impact of the fall in oil prices since June 2014, with local interbank rates dipping despite the pressure on crude prices.

Other banks have reported strong earnings growth in the quarter so far, including estimate-beating profits from Samba Financial Group 1090.SE and Banque Saudi Fransi.

NCB in December said it was proposing a dividend of 0.65 riyals per share for the second half of 2014.

Loans and advances at the end of December stood at 220.72 billion riyals, gaining 17.6 percent on the same point of 2013, while deposits rose 10.8 percent to 333.1 billion riyals over the same period.