Scotiabank earnings beat expectations as provisions for bad loans top $1 billion

financialpost.com:

Bank of Nova Scotia beat analysts’ estimates as it saw continued momentum in its wealth-management and capital-markets businesses.

The Toronto-based lender earned $1.58 per share on an adjusted basis in the fiscal second quarter, it said in a statement Tuesday, topping the $1.56 average estimate of analysts in a Bloomberg survey. The bank’s provisions for credit losses totalled just over $1 billion in the three months through April, close to what analysts had forecast.

Scotiabank saw earnings growth in both its capital-markets and wealth-management businesses. The second quarter also marks another period of revenue growth for the lender’s domestic retail division and comes even as credit conditions worsen for North American consumers and businesses.

Scotiabank has grappled with a higher cost of funding than its rivals and has taken steps to work on that over the past year or so, including by slowing the growth of its mortgage book and seeking out more low-cost deposits. But analysts expect the company to benefit from lower interest rates — which have yet to materialize.

The bank announced no change to its quarterly dividend of $1.06 a share.

Bloomberg.com