Saudi Arabia's National Commercial Bank (NCB), the country's biggest bank by assets, posted a 87 per cent rise in its third-quarter net profit, the lender said on Wednesday.

State-owned NCB made a net profit of 1.5 billion riyals ($412m) in the three months to end September, compared with 828m riyals in the same period a year earlier.

The unlisted lender's assets grew by 13 per cent to 307 billion riyals from 271bn riyals at the end of the same period last year, it said.

Its loans and advances portfolio increased by six per cent to 130bn riyals, from 123bn a year earlier while customer deposits grew by 13 per cent to 243bn compared with 215bn a year earlier.

NCB's Chief Executive, Abdul-Kareem Abu Al-Nasr, said earlier this year that he expected Saudi banks to see higher profits this year as they take less provisions and start to lend more.

Abu Al-Nasr said he expects NCB's profits this year to be higher than 2010 where the bank posted 4.7bn riyals.