MUMBAI - India's largest private lender, HDFC Bank Ltd, said on Saturday its net profit for the three months to June rose 19% from the same period a year earlier, as provisions for bad loans dropped and loan growth picked up.

Net profit for the fiscal first quarter rose to 91.96 billion rupees ($1.15 billion) from 77.3 billion rupees a year earlier, the lender said in a regulatory filing.

Analysts on average had expected the bank to report a profit of 94.9 billion rupees, according to Refinitiv data.

Mumbai-based HDFC Bank, India's first lender to report first-quarter results, has seen loan growth and asset quality improve as business returned to normal after a pandemic slump.

The central bank has said improved lending may help banks' bad loan ratio improve by March 2023.

HDFC Bank, which is set to bulk up its home loan portfolio with a $40 billion deal to buy mortgage lender HDFC Ltd , said its net revenue in the quarter jumped 20% to 271.8 billion rupees.

The bank's gross non-performing loan ratio, a measure of asset quality, improved to 1.28% in the quarter from 1.47% during the same period a year ago.

($1 = 79.7600 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Chris Thomas in Bengaluru and Rajendra Jadhav in Mumbai Editing by William Mallard and Helen Popper)