Canara Bank posted a lower-than-expected quarterly net profit on Wednesday, hurt by higher bad loan provisions.

Net profit rose to 2.52 billion rupees ($39.18 million) in its fiscal first quarter ended June 30, from 2.29 billion rupees a year earlier, the country's fifth largest state-run lender by assets said.

Analysts on average had expected the Bengaluru-based bank to report a net profit of 3.56 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Provisions for the quarter rose to 22.04 billion rupees from 14.93 billion rupees year ago.

Gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans rose to 10.56 percent at end-June from 9.63 percent at March-end.

($1 = 64.3225 rupees)