By Lisa Barrington
LONDON, Nov 5 (Reuters) - New British bank Shawbrook saidits underlying profit rose by 68 percent during thefirst nine months of 2015, driven by growing demand from smallbusinesses for loans.
Underlying pretax profit rose to 54.5 million pounds ($84million) during the period, up from 32.5 million pounds in thesame period a year earlier.
The bank's loan book grew 23 percent to 2.86 billion pounds.
"The group continues to deliver strong growth, withoriginations and loans to customers up 27 percent and 23 percentrespectively, driven by growing demand for lending from UK SMEs(small and medium enterprises)," Shawbrook Interim CEO and CFOTom Wood said.
Shawbrook maintained its net interest margin at 6.1 percentin the first three quarters of 2015. (Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Matt Scuffham)