MUMBAI: The third largest public sector lender Punjab National Bank on Thursday said its net income for the March quarter zoomed 160% to Rs 3,010 crore on improved asset quality and higher loan disbursals.
For the full year ending March 2024, the New Delhi headquartered bank reported a net income of Rs 8,245 crore recording a robust 228.8 percent growth from Rs 2,507 crore posted in FY23.
In the reporting quarter, gross non-performing assets (NPA) declined to 5.73 percent from 8.74 percent last year and from 6.24 percent a quarter ago, while net NPAs plunged to 0.73 percent from 2.72 percent a year-ago and from 0.96 percent in the previous quarter, the bank management led by Atul Kumar Goel, the chief executive, told reporters in a concall.
In absolute terms, gross NPAs declined by Rs 20,985 crore to Rs 56,343 crore from Rs 77,328 crore in March 2023 and net NPAs plunged by Rs 15,786 crore from March 2023 to Rs 6,799 crore as on March 2024, he said.
While the net interest margin stood at 3.25 percent, total yield on advances improved 50 bps to 8.44 percent in Q4 and by 112 bps to 8.28 percent in FY24.
Net interest income increased to Rs 10,363 crore in Q4 from Rs 10,293 crore in Q3 and Rs 9,499 crore in Q4FY23 showing an improvement of 9.1 percent on-year. During FY24, the same rose 16.2 percent to Rs 40,083 crore from Rs 34,492 crore in FY23.
Credit cost improved by 91 bps from 1.72 percent in Q4FY23 to 0.81 percent in Q4 FY24 and by 63 bps from 2.03 percent in FY23 to 1.40 percent in FY24, while the provision coverage ratio improved by 849 bps on-year to 95.39 percent, the slippage ratio improved on-year by 159 bps to 0.72 in FY24 from 2.31 in FY23.
Total business grew 8.6 percent to Rs 23,53,038 crore from Rs 21,65,844 crore in March 2023, of which deposits rose 6.9 percent to Rs 13,69,713 crore from Rs 12,81,163 crore and advances rose 11.2 percent to Rs 9,83,325 crore from Rs 8,84,681 crore.
Total retail credit increased by 12.6 percent to Rs 2.23 trillion. Within retail, housing loan grew by 14.5 percent to Rs 93,694 crore, vehicle loan posted a growth of 25.6 percent to reach Rs 20,692 crore, and personal loans increased by 14.4 percent to Rs 20,766 crore. Agriculture advances grew by 11.3 percent to Rs 1.58 trillion and MSME advances rose 7.0 percent to Rs 1.39 trillion.
Savings deposits increased to Rs 4.80 trillion registering on-year growth of 3.5 percent and current deposits grew by Rs 3,565 crore to Rs 72,201 crore. The low-cost Casa deposits increased to Rs 5.53 trillion recording on-year growth of 2.7 percent.
