PNB Q4 loss at ₹4,750 crore; NPAs decline

Punjab National Bank (PNB) on Tuesday reported a narrowing of its loss by nearly 65% to ₹4,750 crore during the fourth quarter of the fiscal ended March 2019 even after making adequate provisions towards the Nirav Modi fraud and non-performing assets (NPAs).

The scam-hit lender had posted the highest ever loss of ₹13,417 crore in the corresponding January-March period of 2017-18, due to fraud committed by jeweller duo Mehul Choksi and Nirav Modi. The bank’s total income in the March quarter of 2018-19 rose to ₹14,725.13 crore from ₹12,945.68 crore in the year-ago period. It has earned a healthy operating profit of ₹2,861 crore during the quarter and ₹12,995 crore for the year as a whole indicating strong fundamentals, PNB Managing Director Sunil Mehta said while announcing financials here.

“We suffered a setback (Nirav Modi fraud) last year, of which 50% provisioning was done last year and 50% has been made this year. We have taken a conscious step to clean up the book and take provision coverage ratio to a reasonably high level which gives high degree of safety to our stakeholders.

“So, almost all my net NPAs (non-performing assets), 75% provision has already been made against that.

“A few assumptions which we thought will happen during this quarter didn’t materialise. In 2-3 major accounts which have already been resolved by the NCLT, they were on the table, but that money could not be unlocked; against that we had to make 100% provisioning because of the aging,” he said.

Punjab National Bank