Scotiabank posted fourth-quarter earnings of $2.07 billion or $1.64 diluted earnings per share for the three months ended Oct. 31, up from $2.01 billion or $1.57 during the same time last year.
For the year as a whole, profit topped $8.2 billion, a record for the lender.
The quarter was helped by Scotiabank’s Canadian and international banking business segments, which saw net income attributable to shareholders rise by 12 per cent and 11 per cent, to $1.07 billion and $605 million, respectively. However, this was offset by a 15 per cent drop in fourth-quarter net income in its global banking and markets division to $391 million, the bank said.
Scotiabank’s provision for credit losses, or money set aside for bad loans, was $536 million, down from $550 million in the same period a year earlier.
Even with the modest earnings bump in the latest quarter, the bank reported a nearly 11 per cent increase in net income for the fiscal year to $8.24 billion up from $7.37 billion a year earlier.