Canara Bank reports $583 million loss in fourth quarter

MUMBAI (Reuters) - State-run Canara Bank reported on Friday a fourth-quarter net loss of 39.05 billion rupees ($583 million) as provisions, including those to cover sour debt, jumped six times.

That compares with a profit of 6.13 billion rupees a year earlier.

Gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans had jumped to 9.4 percent as of March 31, from 5.84 percent in December, and 3.89 percent a year earlier.

Provisions, including for loan losses, surged to 63.32 billion rupees in the three months ending March 31, from 10.1 billion rupees a year earlier, Canara Bank said in a regulatory filing.

State Bank of India , the nation's top lender by assets, earlier on Friday reported a 66 percent slide in fourth-quarter profit due to higher bad loan provisions.

 

($1 = 66.9900 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Devidutta Tripathy; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)