MUMBAI (Reuters) - State Bank of India (SBI), the nation's biggest lender by assets, said net profit rose 10.2 percent in the fiscal first quarter, beating analyst estimates, as bad loan provisions fell.
Net profit was 36.92 billion rupees ($575.6 million) for the three months ended June 30, up from 33.49 billion rupees in the same year-ago period. That compared with the 34.11 billion rupees average estimate of 20 analysts polled by Reuters.
Gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans marginally rose to 4.29 percent from 4.25 percent in the previous quarter but was lower than 4.9 percent reported a year earlier.
($1 = 64.1400 rupees)
(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by Christopher Cushing)
