State Bank of India Q3 net plunges, bad loans rise less than expected

MUMBAI (Reuters) - State Bank of India , the nation's top lender by assets, reported a 62 percent fall in quarterly profit although its bad loans rose less than expected.

SBI shares gained more than 5 percent after the results.

The lender, which accounts for almost a quarter of India's banking business, said net profit was 11.15 billion rupees ($164 million) for its fiscal third quarter ended Dec. 31, compared with 29.1 billion rupees a year earlier.

Analysts on average had expected a net profit of 33.08 billion rupees.

Gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans rose to 5.1 percent in the December quarter from 4.15 percent in the previous three months.

The Reserve Bank of India, the banking sector regulator, has asked lenders to treat some troubled accounts as if they were bad loans and make adequate provisions, as part of its efforts to clean up bank balance sheets by March 2017.

($1 = 67.9925 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)