New Zealand's Heartland Bank has reported a nine per cent rise in first half profit and forecast similar growth for the full year as its sees solid growth in consumer, motor vehicle and reverse mortgage lending more than offsetting any weakness in rural lending.The regional bank reported a net profit for the six months to December 31 of NZ$25.6 million, up from NZ$23.5 million the previous year. It posted a 3.5 cent per share interim dividend, up from 3.0 cents the previous year, and forecast a full year profit of between NZ$51 million to NZ$55 million, which would be up ten per cent on the previous year."Heartland expects underlying asset growth to continue for the second half of the financial year, with strong household, business and rural volumes projected," CEO Jeff Greenslade said."Growth in consumer and [Home Equity Release] loans is expected to be higher in the second half of the financial year," he said.Heartland bought the Australian and New Zealand operations of reverse mortgage lender Seniors Finance in 2014 and has had the New Zealand market to itself over the last six months after Commonwealth Bank of Australia's ASB pulled out of the market. However, Heartland's reverse mortgage lending growth was modest at one per cent or just NZ$6 million in the first half.Heartland has focused on this part of the mortgage market over the last year after pulling out of the hotly competitive conventional mortgage market. Heartland reported overall lending growth of 2.3 per cent in the first half from the same period a year ago, with consumer lending and business lending making up 95 per cent of that growth.Heartland said its rural lending, which makes up 17 per cent of total lending, grew three per cent. It advised dairy lending made up eight per cent of total lending and it continued to support its customers through loss-making dairy payouts, albeit cautiously. Impairments in rural lending rose to NZ$400,000 from NZ$100,000.Greenslade said Heartland was looking out for acquisition opportunities, given current market conditions and was focused in particular on disruptive new technologies. Heartland owns ten per cent of peer to peer consumer lender Harmoney, which is about to launch in Australia. Heartland said it had doubled its lending capacity on Harmoney to NZ$70 million.He said Heartland was also still considering a capital return of up to NZ$100 million, depending on whether Heartland went ahead with a Tier 2 capital issue in April and whether it found acquisition opportunities.