Banco Bradesco (NYSE:BBD) is sort of the people's champion in Brazil -- it's the largest private bank in this rather large country, but it has built itself around no-frills service to lower-income Brazilians. Historically at least, there have been quite a few of those, and many of them have apparently stayed loyal to the bank as their incomes have improved.

Before diving into the meat of the company's fiscal first quarter, a word of caution is in order. Foreign banks don't always calculate their ratios and numbers in exactly the same fashion as American banks. So in cases where I thought there were some discrepancies or meaningful differences, I made my own calculations. Luckily, in all cases there were some differences in magnitude but not in direction -- in other words, ratios like the return on equity improved whether you use their numbers or mine.

Net income was up a solid 27% this quarter, fueled by a 36% boost in net interest income and a 23% jump in non-interest (fee) income. While Bradesco posted very strong growth in earning assets, the net interest margin also grew -- rising from about 8% last year to 9.7% this quarter. That's right, a 9.7% interest margin. The CEOs of U.S. Bancorp (NYSE:USB) and Wells Fargo (NYSE:WFC) dream about that kind of spread.

On the operations side, the news was a bit more mixed. The efficiency ratio dropped a startling amount -- from 52.7% to 42.9% -- and both return on equity and assets improved from last year and stand at levels that are quite solid relative to just about anybody other than Brazilian rival Banco Itau (NYSE:ITU).

Less promising, credit quality declined sequentially and non-performing loans were about 3.9% (a level that would probably give nightmares to the aforementioned execs at U.S. Bancorp or Wells Fargo). Some deterioration is normal on from the fourth to the first quarter, but this is a metric that bears watching as it was also up quite a bit year on year. In at least one respect, Bradesco has a problem that is pretty common among many U.S. banks -- deposit growth (up 4.4%) is lagging loan growth (up 28%), and that leads to more expensive financing and a higher overall cost of funds.

Bradesco doesn't look expensive, but it also isn't cheap enough to really entice me. After all, Brazil has to deal with inflation, potentially higher energy prices from its dispute with Bolivia, and the usual host of challenges in managing growth. I'd be more than happy to reconsider at a lower price, but for today I think you can find better bargains elsewhere in the world.

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Fool contributor Stephen Simpson has no financial interest in any stocks mentioned (that means he's neither long nor short the shares).