Pacific & Western Credit Corp. today announced a bigger fourth quarter profit as loan fundings rose.

Net earnings for the quarter ended Oct. 31, 2005 were $1.8 million, or 13¢ a share, compared to $1.6 million, or 12¢ a share for the same quarter a year ago.

Total revenue for the fourth quarter improved to $6.9 million from $4.9 million for the same quarter a year ago.

Return on average common shareholders’ equity for 2005 improved to 14.8% from 12.5% a year ago.

Strong loan fundings in the fourth quarter led to lending assets increasing by 13% to $749 million compared to $664 million a year ago.

Credit quality remained strong with gross impaired loans at the end of the year equal to 0.03% of total assets compared to 0.12% at the end of the previous year.

Total assets reached a record $1.1 billion compared to $1 billion a year ago, an increase of 11%.

Net interest income before provision for credit losses for the fourth quarter was $4.5 million compared to $4.1 million for the same quarter a year ago.

“The results for our fourth quarter were particularly encouraging in that we funded a record amount of new loans and leases totaling $123 million bringing the total advances for the year to $375 million,”

Pacific & Western Credit Corp. is the parent company of Pacific & Western Bank of Canada, a Schedule I chartered bank.

PWBank is a branchless financial institution with over $1 billion in assets. It specializes in providing innovative financing to large corporate and government entities including hospitals, school boards, universities and colleges, municipalities and provincial and federal government agencies.