The Bank of Ceylon's profits for March 2009 quarter rose 106 percent to 957 million rupees, with foreign exchange gains and interest income from high yielding government securities.

Group interest income rose 14.9 percent to 9.7 billion rupees, boosted by high yielding government securities, the bank’s just published first quarter results reveal.

The bank said interest income from loans and advances fell 0.4 percent to 9.9 billion rupees, while interest from other earning assets increased 92 percent to 3.6 billion rupees.

The bank has a performing loans and advances portfolio of 268.0 billion rupees and a government securities portfolio of 145.2 billion rupees.

Group forex income rocketed to 892 million rupees from just 78 million rupees from the same quarter last year. Official said it contained realized forex gains as well as gains on profits from its foreign currency banking unit.

The provided 700 million rupees for bad loans against 306 million last year, but also recovered 307 million rupees. Last year 279 million was recovered.

The bank posted pre-tax profits of 2.0 billion rupees. It paid 587 million rupees in financial value added tax and 517 million rupees in income tax.

Bank of Ceylon's deposits grew 5.1 percent to 332 million from December 2008 to March 2009.