BOC has faced increasing pressures on traditional deposit and loan services owing to a string of interest rate cuts in China this year, hence its non-interest revenue has occupied an increasingly high position in its profit portfolio, Li said. For the first three quarters, BOC's non-interest revenue was 55.14 billion yuan ($8.1 billion), up 80.47 percent and accounting for 31.08 percent of its total revenue, which was 9.43 percentage points higher than the previous year.

The bank's quarterly report attributed this growth to its efforts in promoting the interact between its domestic and foreign business, product innovations and market expansion. It also said it had good performance in various services, including international settlements, buying and selling foreign currencies, and financial consulting.

ICBC and CBC also saw their non-interest revenue grow faster than their interest revenue. ICBC reported net interest revenue of 196.6 billion yuan ($28.9 billion), up 23.08 percent, while CBC had 168.2 billion yuan ($24.7 billion), up 20.73 percent.

The changes in the banks' profit portfolios indicate that China's banking system remained active, healthy and profitable during the first three quarters, Li said.

Turning point

Xiong Mei, another analyst at China Securities Co. Ltd., noted a slowdown in the industry, despite the remarkable profit growth that banks reported for the first nine months. The slowdown was obvious in the third quarter, she said, citing the example of China Merchants Bank Co. Ltd. The bank saw its net profit drop 18 percent in the third quarter compared with the second quarter, although the first three quarters as a whole saw a more than 80-percent increase in net profit year on year. The fourth quarter would still present negative growth, she said.

Other banks such as BOC, Shenzhen Development Bank Co. and Bank of Nanjing Co. Ltd. reported notable net profit growth slowdowns in the third quarter. BOC, for instance, attained a net profit of 17.16 billion yuan ($2.5 billion) in September, up 8.24 percent year on year, but down 19 percent compared with August. The increased costs to maintain credit ratings and the diminishing spreads between deposit and lending interest rates caused the commercial banks' profit growth to slow down, Xiong said.

The commercial banks would not be able to revive the halcyon days of high profit growth in the next couple of years because of shrinking demands for their services and their reluctance to issue loans to companies with diminished repayment capacities and a lack of creditworthiness, said Guo Tianyong, Director of the Research Center of the Chinese Banking Industry under the Central University of Finance and Economics.