New York lender First Niagara Financial Group, which has 10 Greater Hartford branches, said it has lowered its previously reported fourth-quarter profits by 12.9 percent due to errors it found in calculating its loan loss provision.
First Niagara now says it booked a profit of $61 million in the fourth quarter. It also revised upward its net income for the prior three quarters, by a total of $6 million.
The errors resulted in First Niagara adding $16 million to its provision for credit losses for the fourth quarter. The loan loss provision is what banks set aside to cover loans they predict will go bad in the future.
The bank said it has terminated a mid-level employee who it blamed for the errors.
