The Financial Post reports in its Saturday edition that Canada's largest banks took higher provisions for credit losses and classified more loans as impaired in their fiscal first quarters, but showed resilience in other areas -- an indication that the country's lenders are weathering a softening economy brought on by higher interest rates. The Post's Barbara Shecter writes that quarterly results last wee showed some of the banks improved performance through cost-cutting and were able to blunt the impact of the higher provisions with loan and deposit growth. On Thursday, Toronto-Dominion Bank was the latest of the big banks to beat analyst expectations, joining Bank of Nova Scotia, Royal Bank of Canada, National Bank of Canada and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. "Margin performance has stabilized and efficiency metrics have improved," National Bank Financial analyst Gabriel Dechaine said in a March 1 note to clients about the sector's results. However, he added, "the biggest source of uncertainty is still the credit cycle." RBC reported total bank provisions for credit losses of $813 million, but was also among the banks to report growth in loans and deposits in its domestic personal and commercial banking division.