Rwanda Commercial Bank (BCR) is reporting a surge in net profit from its unaudited financial highlights, for the year 2011 compared to the same period the previous year.In an interview, BCR’s Managing Director, Sanjeev Anand, disclosed that the bank’s earnings increased to Rwf3 billion ($5,042,016 million) last year, from Rwf2.7 billion ($4,537,815 million) in 2010."The figures are yet to be confirmed by the auditors,” Anand said.BCR projects Rwf3.5 billion net earnings this year."The bank attributes the healthy growth to the increased products on the market and more distribution channels,” Anand noted.He added that their loan book increased by 35 per cent from Rwf28 billion in 2010, to Rwf37 billion last year.Anand asserted that last year’s performance puts BCR in second position as the leading lender by profitability after Bank of Kigali.He also said the bank managed to ease its Non Performing Loans (NPL) to 5.6 per cent as of December last year compared to 20 per cent in 2010. Rwanda’s Central Bank requires at least 7 per cent NPL from Commercial Banks.BCR is owned by Actis, a British investments company and majority shareholder with 80 per cent and Government which owns 20 per cent.Earlier reports suggested that Actis planned to sell its majority shares.However; this has not been confirmed as Central Bank Governor Clever Gatete declined to comment on the details, saying the central bank will communicate when there are new developments.