The Bank of Nova Scotia beat analysts’ third-quarter earnings expectations on higher profits in its capital markets and wealth management business segments.

Scotiabank’s net income for the three months ending July 31 was $2.95 billion, compared to $2.52 billion during the same quarter last year, resulting in net earnings per share of $2.27.

Its adjusted net income — which removes the impact of non-recurring items — was $2.97 billion, compared to $2.51 billion last year, resulting in adjusted earnings per share of $2.28, which beat analysts’ expectations of about $2.10.

“ Q3 was a record quarter for the bank ,” Scotiabank’s chief executive Scott Thomson said in a statement on Tuesday. “A ll business lines reported strong results and we exceeded our medium-term objectives in the period.”

Scotiabank also announced a dividend of $1.14 per share — unchanged from the previous quarter and payable on Oct. 28.

Earnings in the bank’s global wealth management and capital markets segments increased by 23 per cent and 37 per cent respectively, while its Canadian and international banking segments rose by 12 per cent and eight per cent respectively.

The lender’s provision for credit losses, or the amount of money that the bank kept aside to tackle loans that may potentially go bad, increased by $38 million to $1.07 billion when compared to the same quarter last year.

“Scotia’s third quarter represented an impressive beat against expectations,” Jefferies Inc., analyst John Aiken said in a note. “That said, much of the heavy lifting was done by a surprisingly strong capital markets performance. ”

In May, Scotiabank inked a deal to acquire Maple Financial Holdings Inc., a Texas-based company that runs a commercial bank.

The move is part of its goal to allocate more capital in North America, a strategy the lender announced in late 2023. It is looking to allocate a greater share of capital to Canada as well as recycle capital from its Latin American businesses to its corporate business in the U.S.

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In July, the bank said that it was teaming up with Sun Life Financial Inc. , Telus Corp. and Toronto-based AI consultant Lightworks to build and share infrastructure related to artificial intelligence in order to help them deploy the technology faster, more safely and at a lower cost.

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