Washington, May 30 (IANS): US banks reported strong profit growth in the first quarter of 2013, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) said.

FDIC-insured commercial banks and savings institutions earned $40.3 billion for the first three months of 2013, 15.8 percent more than the same period in 2012. It was the 15th consecutive quarter since US banks saw quarterly net earnings improve, indicating that the US banking industry has recovered from the recent financial crisis, reported Xinhua.

Half of all the 7,019 insured institutions reported improvements in their quarterly net income from a year ago, while the share of institutions reporting net losses for the quarter fell to 8.4 percent from 10.6 percent a year earlier, the agency said Wednesday.

Industry earnings totaled $170.6 billion in the first quarter, a 1.6 percent increase from a year earlier. This was mainly driven by higher non-interest income and lower provisions for loan losses. Banks set aside $11 billion in loss provisions in the quarter, 23.2 percent less than a year earlier.