National City Corp., the Pittsburgh region's second-largest bank by market share, reported a $1.76 billion second-quarter loss but added that it has enough capital to survive the credit-market contraction.

The net loss was $2.45 a share, compared with profit of $346.6 million, or 60 cents a share, in the same period a year earlier, the Cleveland-based company said yesterday in a statement. Twenty analysts surveyed by Bloomberg had on average estimated an adjusted loss of 27 cents a share. The bank also increased its 2008 forecast for uncollectible debt to as high as $2.9 billion.

National City is one of the 10 largest banks in the country in terms of deposits and mortgages. The company has about 32,000 total employees, with 3,000 employees and 220 branches in 19 counties in Western Pennsylvania. National City has 150 branches and 1,600 employees working in the greater metropolitan Pittsburgh area.

National City lost almost three-quarters of its market value this year on concern capital levels were insufficient to weather the collapse of the subprime mortgage market and the failure of its Florida expansion strategy. The bank raised $7 billion in April to offset losses, and said today it has the highest capital ratios of any major U.S. bank.

"We are highly confident we now have more than sufficient capital to ride out turbulent credit markets," Chief Executive Officer Peter Raskind said in a conference call yesterday. "We have no intention, plan or need to raise additional capital."

"The fact that with our recent capital raise, National City is the best capitalized among all major U.S. banks and the best of our peer group," said Kristen Baird Adams, spokesperson for National City.

National City, the best-performing stock tracked by the 24-company KBW Bank Index, fell 4 cents to $4.67 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares lost 15 percent on July 14, the first trading day after IndyMac Bancorp Inc. failed. National City was forced to issue a statement saying it had seen "no unusual depositor or creditor activity."

The market may be "starting to come around to the view that National City has adequate capital and that the mortal peril has receded," Sterne, Agee & Leach Inc. analyst Sean Ryan said in an e-mail.

After IndyMac's failure, there was "some outflow of deposits, and then it abated as the week went on," Mr. Raskind said in a call with journalists yesterday. "It was quite a small percentage of our overall deposit base."

The bank's so-called Tier 1 ratio, a gauge regulators use to assess the ability to absorb losses, climbed to 11.1 percent as of June 30 because of the capital raised in April, the bank said yesterday in a statement. The ratio was 6.7 percent three months earlier. Banks must have a 6 percent Tier 1 capital ratio to be considered "well-capitalized" by regulators.

National City reserved $1.6 billion to cover loan losses tied to defaulting mortgage, home equity and construction loans. That compares with $143 million set aside during the second quarter of 2007.

"The company has been knocked down a few times; it hasn't been knocked out," RBC Capital Markets analyst Gerard Cassidy said. "But anyone who thinks this is a quick turnaround I think heard today it's not."

Loans National City doesn't expect to be repaid rose to $740 million from $98 million as more builders defaulted. Debts for which the lender is no longer collecting interest increased to $3.13 billion from $848 million.

National City bought in 2006 and early 2007 Harbor Florida Bancshares Inc. for $1.1 billion and Fidelity Bancshares Inc. for $1 billion. Both are based in Florida, the state that along with Arizona and California accounted for 89 percent of the increase in new-home foreclosures during the first quarter.

National City has a "long-term perspective on the Florida market," said Ms. Adams said. "We are growing relationships in Florida, retail relationships and wealth-management relationships."

Loan balances from businesses exited stood at $17.4 billion, including indirect home equity loans, non-prime mortgages and construction lending, the lender said in a regulatory filing today. National City said that of the $10.3 billion in indirect home-equity loans it currently holds, it would need to charge off $2 billion to $2.3 billion more.

"Clearly, the timing on our Florida acquisitions was unfortunate," Mr. Raskind said, saying the purchases were made just before a "historic sag" in real-estate prices. "The core franchises that we purchased -- we felt good about them when we bought them, and we feel good about them today."

Mr. Raskind said in National City's statement that the bank was "making progress in reducing the size of the liquidating portfolio and mitigating associated losses."

Mr. Raskind said in an interview with the Post-Gazette last month that a key component of National City's turnaround will be a return to its conservative roots, scaling back its operation from a nationwide audience to a smaller footprint that is limited to the Midwest and the east coast of Florida.