The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that National Bank of Canada set aside $203-million in provisions for credit losses in the third quarter, well below the $253-million analysts had been expecting. The Globe's Jameson Berkow and Aajah Sauter write that executives with the bank said they are making progress on integrating Canadian Western Bank with their own businesses. National Bank has booked cost savings of $69-million from the merger so far, and moved a first tranche of clients from Canadian Western over to its systems. The Montreal-based lender also announced plans to buy back 2 per cent of its outstanding common shares, though RBC analyst Darko Mihelic said in a Wednesday note to clients he was "somewhat surprised [disappointed]" that the buyback program was not larger. Third-quarter profit at National Bank of $2.68 on an adjusted per-share basis was below average analyst expectations of $2.71 a share. That result was an outlier among the four major Canadian banks to report third-quarter results thus far, with BMO, Scotiabank and RBC all beating analyst expectations. Toronto-Dominion Bank and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce are due to release their third-quarter results on Thursday.