NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenyan mortgage lender Housing Finance Group posted a 7 percent rise in nine-month pretax profit on Tuesday, helped by growth in net interest income.

Pretax profit rose to 1.1 billion shillings ($10.8 million)for the nine months to Sept. 30. Net interest income rose 24 percent to 2.72 billion shillings, it said in a statement.

Housing Finance said net loans and advances to customers rose to 51.71 billion shillings from 43.27 billion shillings, with net non-performing loans falling by a fifth to 2.7 billion shillings.

Housing Finance’s earnings per share fell to 2.98 shillings from 4.15 shillings in the same period last year. It declared a dividend per share of 0.65 shillings, down from 0.75 shillings.

It did not give a reason for the fall in earnings per share, but it conducted a rights issue in March in which it offered 116.67 million new shares, raising 2.95 billion shillings.

(Reporting by George Obulutsa; Editing by Anand Basu, Reuters)