HDFC Bank fourth-quarter net profit beats estimates, bad loans stable

MUMBAI (Reuters) - HDFC Bank Ltd, India's second-biggest lender by assets, reported fourth-quarter net profit rose 18.3 percent on higher interest and fee income, slightly ahead of estimates.

Net profit was 39.9 billion rupees ($617.60 million) for the three months to March 31, compared with 33.74 billion rupees reported a year ago, HDFC Bank, the most valuable lender in the sector, said on Friday.

Analysts, on average, had expected a net profit of 39.56 billion rupees, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters.

Gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans, at 1.05 percent, were little changed from end-December.

($1 = 64.6050 Indian rupees)

 

(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)