Punjab National Bank’s (PNB) standalone net profit dropped 66% year-on-year to Rs 202 crore for the fiscal fourth quarter ended March 2022, after the lender set aside Rs 325 crore on account of fraud.

The IL&FS Tamil Nadu Power Company account was declared by the bank as fraud during the quarter.

In March, the state-run bank had reported a fraud of Rs 2,060.14 crore to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in the non-performing account of IL&FS Tamil Nadu Power Company.

For the full-fiscal ended 31 March 2022, PNB reported a net profit of Rs 3,457 crore, up 71% from Rs 2,022 crore a year ago.

In the quarter ended March, PNB’s total standalone income dropped 1.4% to Rs 21,095 crore from Rs 21,386 crore in the earlier year.

PNB’s interest income during the March quarter was at Rs 18,645 crore, marginally lower from Rs 18,808 crore in the year-ago quarter.

Net interest income, however, grew 5% in Q4FY22 to Rs 7,304 crore from Rs 6,957 crore in the same quarter a year ago.

The bank’s asset quality improved with gross non-performing assets (NPAs) as a percentage of gross advances falling to 11.78%, from 14.12% a year ago. In the preceding quarter, gross NPAs were 12.88%.  In value terms, gross NPAs in the March quarter stood at Rs 92,448 crore versus Rs 1,04,423 crore a year ago. 

Net NPAs stood at 4.80% (Rs 34,909 crore) during the fourth quarter, down from 5.73% (Rs 38,576 crore) a year ago and 4.90% a quarter ago. 

The bank wrote off Rs 10,548 crore during the quarter with fresh slippages standing at Rs 9,575 crore. Cash recovery and upgradation during the quarter was Rs 4,769 crore. 

For the full-fiscal, total upgradation and recovery was Rs 21,041 crore. 

The bank’s gross domestic advances stood at Rs 7,59,214 crore, up by 5.57% over the previous year. Of this, agriculture advances grew the fastest at 9.79% over the previous year to Rs 1,24,286 crore. The retail advances grew 6.69% year-on-year to Rs 1,30,225 crore. The corporate advances of the bank grew 5.42% to Rs 3,82,998 crore. 

The bank’s board has recommended dividend of Re 0.64 per equity share (32%) of face value of Rs 2 each for 2021-22.