Samba Financial Group and SABB, two of Saudi Arabia's biggest lenders, booked additional provisions against loan losses during the first-quarter after a surge in bad loans last year.

Data from the Saudi stock exchange showed that Samba booked 160.1 million riyals in impairment charges for loan losses during the three months to end-March, which exceeds their quarterly average in 2009.   

SABB booked 176.5 million riyals during the first quarter of 2010 against a total of around 1.5 billion riyals for all of 2009, the data showed.

Smaller rival Saudi Investment Bank booked 313 million riyals for the same purpose during the first quarter, according to the data. - Reuters