Canara Bank third-quarter profit slumps 61 percent

(Reuters) - Canara Bank Ltd said on Wednesday its third-quarter net profit plunged 61 percent, missing analysts' estimates, pulled down by higher provisions for bad loans.

Net profit came in at 1.26 billion rupees ($19.78 million) for the quarter ended Dec. 31, compared with 3.22 billion rupees a year ago, the country's fifth-biggest state-run lender by assets said. http://bit.ly/2G80jDc

Analysts on average expected the company to post a profit of 2 billion rupees, Thomson Reuters Eikon data showed.Gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans stood at 10.38 percent at end-December, compared with 10.51 percent in the previous quarter, and 9.97 percent a year ago.

 

Provisions for bad loans rose about 28 percent to 19 billion rupees.

($1 = 63.6875 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Krishna V Kurup in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Biju Dwarakanath)