A unit of South Africa's Standard Bank, SBU's operating profit jumped to 144 billion shillings ($42.73million) for the first six months of 2016, from 92 billion shillings in the same period last year.

"Strong profitability was driven by ... deploying high yielding investment assets and generating strong trading revenues," Sam Mwogeza, SBU's Chief Financial Officer, said.

The results showed strong earnings from trading in the interbank money market, interest from Treasury bills and bonds, and foreign exchange trading.

During the period SBU helped with arranging a $114 million syndicated loan for telecoms firm MTN Uganda and an interest rate swap deal with the Ugandan government on funds borrowed from China to finance a power plant.

SBU said the two deals supported the strong performance.

--reuters--