SAO PAULO (Reuters) -Brazil's Itau Unibanco, Latin America's largest private lender, on Monday bumped up its estimated portfolio growth for the year after logging an 18% increase in its third-quarter net recurring profit.

Itau reported a 10.68 billion real ($1.84 billion) net recurring profit for the quarter ended in September, beating an estimate of 10.4 billion reais from analysts polled by LSEG.

Itau said it now expects its total credit portfolio to grow between 9.5% and 12.5%, up from a previous estimate 6.5% to 9.5% growth.

Itau management has said the bank was close to finishing a two-year-long overhal of its personal credit segment by trimming loans for clients who were most unlikely to pay them back on time.

That has raised analysts' expectations for coming quarters, as Itau could start to deliver higher portfolio growth once the process is wrapped up.

Itau's return on equity, a gauge of profitability, stood at 22.7%, up from 21.1% a year earlier, and 22.4% in the second quarter.

($1 = 5.7916 reais)

(Reporting by Andre Romani in Sao Paulo; Editing by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez; Editing by Kylie Madry)