BENGALURU - State Bank of India, the country's largest lender by assets, reported an 81% rise in quarterly profit on Friday, helped by a one-time gain from a stake sale in its life insurance unit.

Net profit climbed to 41.89 billion rupees ($559.95 million) for the three months ended June 30, from 23.12 billion rupees a year earlier, Mumbai-based SBI said in a regulatory filing.

Analysts on average were looking for a profit of 34.49 billion rupees, according to Refinitiv data.

Gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans, a measure of asset quality, eased to 5.44% from 6.15% in the previous quarter and 7.53% a year earlier.

($1 = 74.8100 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Chris Thomas in Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty) ((chris.thomas@thomsonreuters.com; +91-80-6749-8695;))