Axis Bank Q3 net profit up 14.5 percent but bad loans rise

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Axis Bank Ltd, India's third-biggest private sector lender by assets, reported a better-than-expected 14.5 percent increase in third-quarter profit, although its bad loans shot up.

Net profit rose to 21.75 billion rupees ($320 million) for the three months to Dec. 31 from 19 billion rupees a year earlier, the Mumbai-based bank said on Wednesday.

Analysts on average had expected a net profit of 20.85 billion rupees, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters.

Gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans rose to 1.68 percent at end-December from 1.38 percent in the previous three months.

($1 = 67.9700 Indian rupees)

 

(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by Anand Basu)