HDFC Bank net profit up 30 percent, bad loans rise

MUMBAI (Reuters) - HDFC Bank posted on Wednesday a 30 percent rise in first-quarter net profits, in line with expectations, boosted by higher fee income and credit growth.

The Mumbai-based lender, India's third largest in terms of assets, has posted profit growth of more than 30 percent every quarter for the last decade.

Net profit rose to 18.4 billion rupees in the quarter ended June from about 14.17 billion rupees a year earlier. Net interest income grew nearly 21 percent to 44.16 billion rupees.

According to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S, analysts had expected a net profit of 18.46 billion rupees for the bank. HDFC competes with bigger local rivals like State Bank of India and ICICI Bank .

Asset quality, valued by the market at about $27 billion, worsened slightly, with net nonperforming loans as a percentage of total assets at 0.3 percent compared with 0.2 percent a year ago.

HDFC Bank's conservative lending strategies have helped it maintain consistently strong growth and outperform local peers struggling with an increase in bad loans.

(Reporting by Swati Pandey; Editing by Chris Gallagher and Miral Fahmy)