Bank of Nova Scotia's profit was weighed down in its latest quarter by mounting provisions for bad loans and its Latin American operations.

The Toronto-based bank revealed Tuesday that its third-quarter profit slipped to $1.30 billion from $1.98 billion a year ago, while its provisions for credit losses totalled $2.18 billion for the quarter, up from $713 million in the year prior and $1.85 billion last quarter.

"We know that structural damage has been done to the economy. It's going to require a lot of quarters of clean up from here, but we do view this quarter's PCL as our high-water mark," Daniel Moore, the bank's chief risk officer, said in a conference call with financial analysts.

"We see it decline substantially from here, and we're well provisioned on the balance sheet to cover our current estimate of future net write-offs."

• Analysis COVID-19 has Canada's banks worried about sickly loans, but they're still raking in the cash

• Scotiabank profit falls 40% as loan loss provisions more than double amid COVID-19

His remarks came as the bank said its profit amounted to $1.04 per diluted share for the quarter ended July 31, compared with $1.50 per diluted share a year earlier.

Revenue totalled $7.73 billion, up from $7.66 billion in the same quarter last year.

On an adjusted basis, Scotiabank says it earned $1.04 per diluted share in the quarter, down from an adjusted profit of $1.88 per share in the same quarter last year.

Analysts on average had expected an adjusted profit of $1.11 per share, according to financial markets data firm Refinitiv.