PNB March quarter loss narrows to Rs 4,750 crore; NPA provision declines

State-owned Punjab National Bank (PNB) Tuesday reported narrowing of its net loss by nearly 65 percent to Rs 4,750 crore during the last quarter of fiscal ended March 2019, backed by decline in bad-loan provisioning and improvement in asset quality.

The scam-hit lender had posted a staggering loss of Rs 13,417 crore in the corresponding January-March period of 2017-18, due to fraud committed by jeweller duo Mehul Choksi and Nirav Modi.

Bank's total income during March quarter of 2018-19 rose to Rs 14,725.13 crore from Rs 12,945.68 crore in the year-ago period, it said in a regulatory filing.

For the full fiscal 2018-19, bank's consolidated net loss was at Rs 9,570.11 crore, as against a loss of Rs 12,113.36 crore during 2017-18.

Income during the fiscal rose to Rs 59,514.53 crore as against Rs 57,608.19 crore in preceding fiscal.

On assets front, PNB witnessed improvement as the gross non-performing assets (NPAs) which were brought down to 15.50 percent of gross advances at end of March 2019, as against 18.38 percent at the end of March 2018.

Net NPAs or bad loans too came down to 6.56 percent as against 11.24 percent year-ago.

In absolute-value, gross NPAs stood at Rs 78,472.70 crore at end of fiscal 2018-19, lower than Rs 86,620.05 crore reported in 2017-18. Net NPAs were valued at Rs 30,037.66 crore as against Rs 48,684.29 crore.

Improvement in asset quality allowed the lender to park lesser amount towards provisioning for bad loans during March quarter of FY19, which stood at Rs 9,153.55 crore.

While, in the year-ago period, it stood at Rs 16,202.82 crore.

With respect to accounts covered under the provisions of Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), the bank is holding total provision of Rs 11,940.15 crore as on March 31, 2019 (84.63 per cent of total outstanding) including additional provision of Rs 433.93 crore in said accounts made during the year ended March 31, 2019, it said.

PNB also said that it received capital infusion of Rs 5,908 crore from the government during March quarter of 2018-19 in lieu of over 80 crore equity shares on a preferential basis.

On divergence in asset classification and provisioning for NPAs, in compliance with RBI's risk assessment report for 2017-18, PNB has reported a gap of Rs 895.70 crore in respect of divergence in gross NPAs.

The divergence in net NPAs stood at (-) Rs 2,871.10 crore.

The provisioning coverage ratio as on March 31, 2019 works out to 74.50 percent, PNB said.

Stock of the bank was trading lower by 3.7 percent at Rs 86 on BSE.