By Jeff McKinney
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Loan and deposit growth, as well as continued strong asset quality, helped the parent of Fifth Third Bank post double-digit gains in profits for the fourth quarter and all of 2002.

Fifth Third Bancorp, Cincinnati's largest banking company based on assets and branches, said it earned an annual record $1.6 billion, or $2.76 a share, last year, up from $1 billion, or $1.86 a share, in 2001.

In the fourth quarter, Fifth Third earned $423.4 million, or 72 cents a share, up from $385.5 million, or 65 cents a share, a year earlier.

The higher profits came as Fifth Third's net interest income for last year rose 8.8 percent to $2.7 billion, while fee income increased to about $2.2 billion, up from about $1.8 billion a year ago.

The increases came as Fifth Third experiences strong growth in all four of its lines of businesses - consumer banking, commercial lending, investment, and trust operation and data processing.

"Financial results were driven by outstanding customer and deposit growth in all of our markets, solid revenue and loan growth and consistently strong credit quality,'' said George A. Schaefer Jr., Fifth Third's president and chief executive.

Higher fee income continued to be a big contributor to the banking company's profitability. Fifth Third's mortgage banking revenue for the year rose to almost $188 million, up from about $63 million in 2001. Income from the bank's fast-growing data-processing unit came in at $512 million last year, up 47 percent from $347.4 million in 2001.

The banking giant also was able to reduce costs as its total operating expenses for 2002 came in at $2.2 billion, down from $2.3 billion in 2001.

E-mail jmckinney@enquirer.com.