Canara Bank posts worse-than-expected fall in second-quarter profit

(Reuters) - Canara Bank Ltd reported a 27 percent fall in second-quarter profit on lower interest income.

Net profit fell to 2.60 billion rupees ($40.00 million) in the quarter ended Sept. 30 from 3.57 billion rupees a year earlier, the country's eighth-biggest state-run lender by assets said on Friday. (http://bit.ly/2yRzd03)

Analysts, on average, had expected a net profit of 3.31 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans stood at 10.51 percent at end-September, compared with 10.56 percent a quarter earlier and 9.81 percent a year ago.

Interest earned in the quarter fell 3 percent to 100.58 billion rupees.

 

($1 = 65.0000 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Samantha Kareen Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Sunil Nair and Vyas Mohan)