First Merchant Bank of Malawi’s First-Half Profit Drops 18%

First Merchant Bank, a Malawian lender, said first half profit fell 18 percent on competition among banks for deposits and a shortage of foreign exchange.

Net income declined to 732.9 million Malawi kwacha ($5.2 million) in the six months through June from 894.9 million kwacha a year earlier, the bank said in a statement published today in the Daily Times newspaper. Net interest income, the money banks make from interest charges on loans, grew 40 percent to 1.2 billion kwacha.