HONG KONG, July 3 (Reuters) - Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (1398.HK: Quote, Profile, Research), the country's largest lender, grew first-half net profit by more than 50 percent as income from both lending and fees from services boomed.

The bank (601398.SS: Quote, Profile, Research), which made that forecast pn Thursday based on Chinese accounting standards, has been expanding aggressively into intermediary services to broaden its revenue beyond plain-vanilla interest on loans.

ICBC said it posted a net profit of 40.84 billion yuan ($5.96 billion) based on Chinese accounting standards, which can sometimes differ greatly from international financial reporting standards.

For a full statement, please click here ($1=6.852 Yuan) (Reporting by Judy Hua and Edwin Chan)