The Bank of China reported a 2.5 percent increase in net profit in the first half of 2016 helped by the disposal of Nanyang Commercial Bank.

China's fourth-biggest lender by assets said Tuesday that its net profit for the January-June period was 93.0 billion yuan, or 13.93 billion US dollars. That compared to 90.7 billion yuan in the year-ago period.

The first-half figure implied a net profit of 46.4 billion yuan in the second quarter. That was up from 44.9 billion yuan in the year-ago period and beat expectations.