HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe financial services group CBZ Holdings reported a 61 percent rise in full-year earnings on Tuesday, shrugging off a dollar crunch that left depositors unable to withdraw their money from banks at the end of last year.

The southern African state was forced this year to draw down $110 million from a 2009 IMF fund and last month limited the amount of cash banks can hold in offshore accounts in a bid to ease domestic dollar shortages.

CBZ, the first Zimbabwean banking group with $1 billion in assets, said it would cut down on a policy of aggressive lending that it has pursued since 2009 when the country abandoned its local currency in favour of foreign multiple currencies.

CBZ, which has units in commercial banking, mortgage financing, asset management, short-term insurance and property investment, said basic earnings per share were 4.833 cents for the 12 months to the end of December 2011, against 2.99 cents in 2010.

Profit after tax jumped to $30.3 million from $18.8 million.

The group - which has been at the centre of rumours regarding its huge loan book - expects loan advances at its banking unit to grow by only 5 percent in 2012 from the current $800 million, nearly double the 2010 figure.

Its non-performing loans shot up to $48 million at the end of last year, compared with just $1.7 million previously, although bank officials said the figure was still manageable.

"We learnt our lessons and that is why you will see there is only an anticipated five percent growth in loan advances this year," incoming chief executive John Mangudya told an analyst briefing.

Mangudya also told Reuters that the Libyan Foreign Bank, which owns 14 percent of CBZ, had committed to maintain its investment.