Canara Bank posts $723 million fourth-quarter loss

(Reuters) - Canara Bank Ltd on Friday posted a huge loss for the fourth quarter, hurt by higher provisions for bad loans.

Net loss was 48.60 billion rupees ($722.57 million) for the three months ended March 31, compared with a profit of 2.14 billion rupees a year ago, the state-run bank said in a statement. https://bit.ly/2rB5Vzj

Provisions for non-performing assets almost tripled to 87.63 billion rupees.

Gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans rose to 11.84 percent at end-March, compared with 10.38 percent in the preceding quarter and 9.63 percent a year ago.

($1 = 67.2600 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Vishal Sridhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)