AKIPRESS.COM - Halyk Bank , Kazakhstan's second-largest lender by assets, said on Tuesday its net profit jumped by 58 percent to 114.4 billion tenge ($617 million) in 2014, above its own forecast of between 95 billion and 100 billion tenge.

Halyk, the Central Asian nation's most profitable bank, said its assets grew by 12.1 percent last year, while net loans issued to customers rose by 11.2 percent, reports Reuters.

The bank's impairment charges plunged by 71.6 percent, mainly because of the repayment of overdue debts by some corporate clients in the first three quarters of last year.

Net interest margin, an indicator of a bank's efficiency, grew to 5.8 percent last year from 4.9 percent in 2013.

Halyk said its assets grew by 12.1 percent, while net loans issued to customers rose by 11.2 percent.

Halyk's largest single shareholder is Almex, a holding company owned by Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev's middle daughter Dinara and her entrepreneur husband Timur Kulibayev.