* SEB sets total dividend of 11.5 SEK/share vs forecast 9.6 SEK

* Payout comprises ordinary and special dividends for 2023

* Net profit misses forecast

* Interest income also just misses consensus

STOCKHOLM, Jan 25 (Reuters) - SEB on Thursday proposed a bigger-than-expected annual shareholder payout in the form of ordinary and special dividends even as the Swedish bank reported a fourth-quarter net profit marginally below market expectations.

SEB, which is more focused on corporate clients than some of its Nordic peers, proposed paying a total dividend of 11.50 crowns per share for 2023, up from 6.75 crowns in the previous year and well above the 9.59 crowns forecast by analysts.

The payout was structured as an ordinary dividend of 8.50 crowns per share with an additional disbursement of 3 crowns. The bank said late on Wednesday that it would utilise an existing mandate to initiate a 1.75-billion-crown ($167.71 million) share buyback.

The bank's net profit rose to 8.37 billion crowns from 7.40 billion in the year-ago period, lagging the 8.79 billion seen in a poll of estimates collected by LSEG.

SEB and rivals such as Swedbank, Handelsbanken and Nordea have been racking up hefty profits over the past two years as soaring interest rates have driven a spike in interest income.

With central banks now expected to begin cutting rates this year, that tailwind appears set to ease.

The bank reported interest income, which includes revenue from mortgages, of 12.10 billion crowns in the quarter, compared with 9.72 billion a year earlier, lagging the mean analysts' estimate of 12.27 billion.

"Interest rates started to plateau towards the end of the year and the positive effect on our results experienced earlier in 2023 continued to abate," SEB CEO Johan Torgeby said in a statement.

While boosting bank interest income, the soaring central bank rates have also squeezed real estate markets and heavily indebted companies in that sector, notably in Sweden, raising concerns this may feed into rising loan losses for banks.

SEB reported net expected credit losses of 664 million crowns, compared with 506 million crowns in the year-ago quarter and the 476 million seen by analysts.

"Overall asset quality remained robust," Torgeby said. ($1 = 10.4345 Swedish crowns)

(Reporting by Niklas Pollard; Editing by Anna Ringstrom and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)