- The bank achieves another milestone with gross business mix surpassing ₹25 lakh crore
NE BUSINESS BUREAU
AHMEDABAD, OCT 28
The Punjab National Bank (PNB), which is the country’s second largest public sector bank, on Monday reported a standalone net profit of ₹4,303.5 crore in the quarter ended September 2024, recording a substantial growth of 145% from ₹1,756 crore, in the year-ago quarter. A 2.5 times surge in PNB’s Q2 bottomline was due to a sharp fall in new provisions and contingencies.
PNB has achieved another milestone with gross business mix surpassing ₹25 lakh crore.
Commenting on the latest financial performance, Atul Kumar Goel, Managing Director & CEO, attributed the strong growth in bottomline to sharp reduction in credit cost to 0.08 percent and also lower provisioning towards bad loans.
“This Q2 quarter has been the best quarter for us in last 16 quarters (4 years) in terms of net profit, net interest income, operating profit”, he said.
Encouraged by strong show, Goel said that the bank has revised its Gross NPA guidance to 3.5-3.75 percent. At the beginning of fiscal year, the guidance for GNPA was 5 percent of advances. This was lowered to 4 percent after Q1 results and now bank has further lowered GNPA guidance to 3.5-3.75 percent, Goel said.
Asked about the guidance for Net Interest Margin (NIM), Goel said that he expects NIM to be maintained at 2.9 percent to 3 percent for entire fiscal.
Goel also said that he expects RBI to cut interest rates by 25-50 basis points by March 2025.
On deposit rates, Goel said that deposit rates have peaked and that the bank aims to grow deposits by 10-11 percent this fiscal. On the other hand, the bank aims to grow its advances by 11-12 percent this fiscal.
PNB’s net interest income (NII), or the difference between interest earned and interest paid, in Q2FY25 increased 6% to ₹10,517 crore, from ₹9,923 crore, year-on-year (YoY).
Pre-Provision Operating Profit in the September 2024 quarter grew 10.24% to ₹6,853.31 crore from ₹6,216.43 crore, YoY.
Asset quality of the state-run lender improved during the quarter ended September 2024. PNB’s Gross Non-Performing Assets in Q2FY25 fell to ₹47,582.25 crore from ₹51,262.78 crore in the previous quarter. Gross NPA as a percentage of gross advances (Gross NPA Ratio) declined to 4.48% from 4.98%, QoQ.
The bank’s global yield on advances was at 8.31% in Q2FY25 as compared to 8.15% in Q2FY24. Global cost of deposits increased by 32 bps YoY to 5.18% in Q2FY25.
Net NPA in Q2FY25 decreased to ₹4,674.24 crore from ₹5,930.06 crore, QoQ, while Net NPA ratio also fell to 0.46% from 0.60%, sequentially.
The bank’s new provisions and contingencies in Q2FY25 declined to just ₹288.01 crore from ₹3,444.18 crore, YoY.
PNB’s Savings Deposits increased to ₹4,88,635 crore, registering a growth of 3.7% YoY. Current Deposits rose 1.6% YoY to ₹68,104 crore.
CASA Deposits growth as 3.4% to ₹5,56,739 crore, while CASA share of the bank stands at 39.31% as on September 2024.
The lender’s total Retail credit increased by 14.6% YoY to ₹2,50,149 crore as on September 2024. The bank grew under Core Retail Advances recording a YoY growth of 19.0%, PNB said.
As on 30th September 2024, Punjab National Bank has 10,159 domestic branches and 2 International Branches. Out of total number of branches, the bank has 63.31% branches in Rural & Semi-Urban areas.
