SINGAPORE - Singapore's OCBC reported on Wednesday an unexpected 12 percent rise in quarterly profit, helped by lower bad debt charges and trading gains that overcame writedowns on toxic debt linked to its insurance unit.

Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp (OCBC) clocked a net profit of S$450 million in July-September compared with S$402 million in the year-ago period.

Analysts had predicted a net profit of S$278 million, according to the average of six forecasts compiled by Reuters.
OCBC took a hit of S$213 million linked to its insurance unit Great Eastern , which in July decided to redeem its complex derivatives at a loss.

OCBC is set to overtake United Overseas Bank as Singapore's second-biggest bank after completion of its $1.5
billion purchase of ING's Asia private banking unit by the end of the year.

Its shares are up around 52 percent so far this year, in line with a similar rise in the benchmark stock index.