Punjab National Bank third-quarter net profit rises 11 percent, lags estimates

(Reuters) - Punjab National Bank, India's fourth-largest lender by assets, reported third-quarter net profit rose 11 percent as its proportion of bad loans to total loans fell, although the profit increase was smaller than expected.

Net profit was 2.3 billion rupees ($35.8 million) for the three months to Dec. 31, compared with 2.07 billion rupees a year ago, the state-run bank said on Tuesday. http://bit.ly/2s7UcvE

Twenty one analysts on average had expected a net profit of 5.37 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans fell to 12.11 percent at end-December, from 13.31 percent in the previous quarter and 13.70 percent a year earlier.

($1 = 64.2450 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Krishna V Kurup and Vishal Sridhar in Bengaluru, Editing by Edwina Gibbs)