Punjab National Bank (PNB) registered a marginal increase of 2.2% in net profit to ₹561 crore for the September quarter, as it trimmed bad loans and contained slippages.
It had a net profit of ₹549 crore in the July-September quarter of the last fiscal.
The bank’s gross bad loans or non-performing assets (NPAs), as a proportion of gross advances came down to 13.31% (₹57,630.11 crore) at the end of September, from 13.63% (₹56,465.63 crore) a year earlier.
“If you have seen the trend, almost every bank has shown increases in gross NPAs. But our bank contained it and we are below the March level. Our fresh slippages have considerably gone down by more than ₹3,000 crore in this quarter,” PNB MD and CEO Sunil Mehta told reporters.
Fresh slippages in September last year were more than ₹11,000 crore, but now they were a little more than ₹8,000 crore, he said.
Mr. Mehta said the bank would sell its non-core assets ‘as and when market conditions were suitable’.
“We have approval in place to sell partial stake in some non-core assets. One of them is PNB Housing Finance,” he added.