Axis Bank Q1 net profit up 19 percent; bad loans rise

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Axis Bank Ltd, India's third-biggest private sector lender by assets, reported a better-than-expected 19 percent increase in quarterly profit even as bad loans rose.

Net profit rose to 19.78 billion rupees ($310 million) for its fiscal first quarter to June 30 from 16.67 billion rupees a year earlier, the bank said in a filing. Analysts on average had expected a net profit of 19.39 billion rupees, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters.

Gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans rose to 1.38 percent in the June quarter from 1.34 percent in the previous three months.

($1 = 63.9150 rupees)

 

(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by Anupama Dwivedi)