China Construction Bank Corp, the world's second-largest lender by market value, reported a 14.6 percent year-on-year increase in its first-half profit as it released interim results on Sunday.

The bank earned 106.5 billion yuan ($16.80 billion) in the first six months, driven by lending growth and fee income. The bank's net interest income rose 16.5 percent to 24 billion yuan, it said in a statement.

As for the second quarter, it registered a profit growth of 20 percent, with net income increasing to 54.8 billion yuan in the quarter, which beat the 49.9 billion-yuan average estimate of 16 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

The bank lent out 564.9 billion yuan in new loans in the first half of the year. Non-performing loans fell to 70.4 billion yuan by the end of June from 70.7 billion yuan three months earlier. The non-performing ratio stood at 1 percent.

But the bank set aside 14.7 billion yuan as provision for bad loans in the first half, up 6 percent year-on-year.

The lender also accelerated its expansion pace in the first six months by establishing 138 new branches, five times more than at the same period last year.