GE Capital is looking to the middle market in Australia, and especially the resources sector, for growth, with the financier no longer being constrained by the need to release capital from its parent. Yesterday, the firm provided an overview for the business media of its trading highlights for the prior calendar year. The data represents an aggregate of the results for numerous statutory entities and is not audited.GE said that its net income for the year to December 2011 increased by six per cent to A$467 million. On an underlying basis, net income increased by 20 per cent.The charge for bad debts fell 29 per cent to $234 million. Asset quality improved, with loans 30 days or more past due at just 2.9 per cent at the end of last year, down 50 basis points from 2010. GE said the level of non-earning assets was 0.8 per cent, down 30 bps from the year before.Net lending assets declined by one third to $9.9 billion. The fall reflects the sale of GE's remaining mortgage assets to Pepper Homeloans in the third quarter of last year.This may be the low water mark for GE Capital in terms of its asset base in Australia; it has reduced business, measured by assets, by more than three quarters since the onset of the early stages of the financial crisis in 2007.GE said lending volumes increased six per cent, to $11.8 billion, over 2011. Volumes increased by 14 per cent in commercial lending and were flat in consumer lending. GE said that in its core business, ignoring the sale of the remaining home loans, asset growth for the year was one per cent.As with many lenders, the first quarter of the 2011 calendar year was a difficult one for the financier, thanks to the Queensland floods, a trend that continued into the second quarter. Asset quality improved over the second half of the year.The thorniest issue for GE is finding customers in its traditional markets willing to borrow, as middle market companies and households take a cautious view on global economic trends and their implications for Australia.Malcolm Skander, chief executive of GE Capital Australia, said yesterday that the firm, globally and in Australia, "wants to be a growth business" and that this included "organic and inorganic growth".