SINGAPORE, Feb 22 — DBS Group Holdings Ltd.’s fourth-quarter profit rose more than analysts forecast on higher interest income, as well as gains from fees and commissions.

Net income rose 20 per cent to S$1 billion (RM3 billion) for the three months ended Dec. 31 from a year earlier, Singapore’s biggest bank said Monday in an exchange statement. That beat the S$965 million average estimate of eight analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

DBS is the last of three major Singapore banks to report earnings for 2015. The lenders, among the largest in Southeast Asia, are facing rising non-performing loans amid a regional downturn that may curb the companies’ profitability. The banks are setting aside more cushions against soured debts, which restricts gains from higher local interest rates.

An increase in the three-month Singapore interbank offered rate last year has helped DBS’s interest margins. Sibor more than doubled as the U.S. Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rate for the first time since 2006. The rally extended by 5.6 per cent this year.

DBS’s net interest margin, a measure of lending profitability, rose to a five-year high of 1.84 per cent in the fourth quarter, from 1.71 per cent a year earlier. That helped net interest income climb 11 per cent to S$1.85 billion, the statement showed. Fee and commission income rose 6 per cent to S$485 million. — Bloomberg