The Business Bytes
TBB BUREAU
NEW DELHI, MAY 12, 2022
Country’s second-largest public sector bank Punjab National Bank (PNB) expects an overall credit growth of 10 per cent in FY 2022-23 on the back of robust credit demand seen in steel, road and cement sectors besides NBFCs, PNB Managing Director & CEO Atul Kumar Goel told media persons at a virtual press meet today.
This was much higher than the six per cent overall credit growth seen in FY2021-22.
“We see 2022-23 as a very good year for the Indian economy. We have reached pre-pandemic demand levels”, Goel said post the declaration of bank’s Q4 results. He highlighted that the scope for PNB to garner treasury incomes would be next to nothing low in the current fiscal, and therefore the bank is betting big on growth in business volumes.
In the March quarter, the bank’s net profit fell 66 per cent to Rs 202 crore. However, for the full year 2021-22, the net profit jumped 71 per cent to Rs 3,457 crore.
Goel said that PNB is eyeing a 15 per cent growth in operating profit, which had come in at Rs 20,762 crore in FY 2021-22, during the current fiscal.
PNB declared its January-March earnings Wednesday, and posted a drop in its gross NPAs to 11.78 per cent from 14.12 per cent reported a year ago. Gross NPAs in October-December 2021 were 12.88 per cent. In absolute terms, gross NPAs were Rs 92,448 crore as on March 2022. Net NPAs stood at 4.80 per cent from 5.73 per cent a year ago and 4.90 per cent a quarter ago.
PNB will aim to bring down net NPAs below 4 per cent in the financial year 2022-23, Goel said.
He further said that PNB plans to transfer non-performing assets (NPAs) worth Rs 8,000 crore to the newly created National Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd (NARCL) — which is commonly referred to as bad bank — in phases.
PNB will focus on credit quality, improvement in CASA, NPA recoveries and containment of slippages during the current fiscal, asserted Goel adding that the Bank is optimistic of bringing down the gross NPA percentage level to single digit this fiscal from the existing 11.78 per cent.
