BENGALURU (Reuters) – Indian private lender IndusInd Bank reported a bigger-than-expected jump in third-quarter profit on Wednesday, lifted by strong loan growth and a drop in provisions for bad loans.

The company’s standalone profit, which excludes results of unit Bharat Financial Inclusion, jumped 68.7% to 19.59 billion rupees ($241 million) in the three months ended Dec. 31.

Analysts were expecting a profit of 18.59 billion rupees, according to Refinitiv IBES data.

Provisions dropped 35.6% in the quarter, the Mumbai-based lender said in an exchange filing.

Indian lenders are expected to report strong numbers for the October-December quarter as lending picked up even amid a slew of central bank interest rate hikes.

On Saturday, HDFC Bank, India’s biggest private lender, reported a 18.5% jump in profit on healthy loan growth.

Earlier this month, IndusInd had also reported that its quarterly net advances increased 19% year-over-year and 5% sequentially.

The company, on Wednesday, said its gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans – a measure of asset quality – eased slightly to 2.06% at the end of December, from 2.11% at the end of September. ($1 = 81.2900 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Nallur Sethuraman in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D’Souza)

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