State-owned Punjab & Sind Bank is getting a makeover under its new managing director and CEO, Swarup Kumar Saha, who took charge in June this year.

“We are getting the bank future ready and technologically savvy,” Saha said.

The Delhi-headquartered bank is looking to collaborate with a number of fintech companies to expand its services and footprint across the country.

Punjab & Sind Bank plans to add 50 branches in different states, 25 of which will open by March 2023 and the rest 25 by March 2024.

“The expansion plans will bring back our strong growth story. We are also conscious of our bad loans. Our lending is now undertaken with strong underwriting standards. The teams that source and sanction the loans are separated. We have war rooms to tackle our non-performing assets (NPAs) on a daily basis,” Saha explained.

The 114-year-old institution, which expects to make upgrades and  recoveries of Rs 2,000 crore in FY23, has made significant progress in the first half. The bank has already made recovery and upgradation of Rs 888 crore during the first half of the financial year ended 30 September 2022.

“Corporate loans had created issues earlier. Now we have created war rooms to tackle and recover the bad loans,” Saha said.

The bank’s asset quality has improved with gross non-performing assets (NPAs) declining to 9.67% of the gross advances at the end of September from 14.54% a year ago.

In value terms, the gross NPAs stood at Rs 7,128.45 crore by the end of September quarter, as against Rs 9,822.80 crore in the year-ago quarter.

Net NPAs fell to 2.24% from 3.81%.

 The bank's provisions for bad loans and contingencies declined to Rs 125 crore for the September quarter, from Rs 203 crore a year ago.

 The bank had fresh slippages of Rs 377 crore.

Provision Coverage Ratio (PCR) improved to 89.16% compared to 84.44% in the earlier year. 

 The bank has identified seven accounts worth Rs 1,579 which it will move to the National Asset Reconstruction Company Ltd (NARCL).

 Punjab & Sind Bank’s net profit rose 27% to Rs 278 crore in the fiscal second quarter ended September. Total income rose 7% YoY to Rs 2,120.17 crore.