State Bank of India third quarter profit beats estimates

(Reuters) - State Bank of India reported a bigger-than-expected quarterly profit on Friday, as the country's biggest lender by assets set aside lower provisions for bad loans.

Its net profit was 39.55 billion rupees ($556 million) for the third quarter ended Dec. 31, versus a loss of 24.16 billion rupees a year ago, the bank said in a stock exchange filing.

That compares to a 32.08 billion rupee profit estimated on average by 18 analysts, according to Refinitiv data.

SBI, which accounts for more than a fifth of India's banking assets, saw its gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans ease to 8.71 percent at end-December, from 9.95 percent in the previous quarter and 10.35 percent in the year-ago period.

($1 = 71.1200 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Chris Thomas in Bengaluru; Editing by Himani Sarkar)