Top China bank ICBC, the world's largest, posts 4.1 percent first-quarter profit rise

SINGAPORE/BEIJING (Reuters) - Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd (ICBC), the world's biggest commercial lender by assets, said net profit grew 4.1 percent year-on-year in the first quarter, slightly below expectations.

Profit was 82.01 billion yuan (£9.43 billion) in the three months through March, compared with 78.80 billion yuan in the same period a year earlier, the bank said in a filing on Monday.

Analysts had expected a 4.3 percent rise in first-quarter net profit, according to two brokerage estimates compiled by Reuters.

(Reporting By Shu Zhang in Singapore and Cheng Leng in Beijing; Editing by Himani Sarkar)