Royal Bank of Canada said on that its quarterly profit fell 15% as higher loan loss provisions and previously announced securities losses pushed down results.

The bank, which warned of a 15% profit decline in November, reported net income of $1.12 billion, or 81¢ a share, in the fourth quarter ended on Oct. 31.

That was down from $1.32 billion, or $1.01 a share, a year earlier.

Pre-tax writedowns were just over $1 billion, but after adjusting for tax, compensation and increases in debt held for trading, the writeoff fell to $362 million.

Revenue fell to $5.07 billion from $5.62 billion.

RBC’ results suffered because of charges for securities losses and impairments, but were helped by a gain on the fair value of the bank’s liabilities due to wider credit spreads and by the benefit of a lower provision for Enron litigation.

Return on equity was 16.1%, down from 23%.

RBC boosted its provision for credit losses to $619 million from $263 million a year earlier.

The bank is prediciting that the U.S. economy will shrink by 1% next year, while the Canadian economy will grow 0.3%.

IE