Punjab & Sind Bank Q1 net loss widens to Rs 117 cr on mounting bad loans

State-owned Punjab & Sind Bank (PSB) on Friday said its net loss widened to Rs 116.89 crore in the first quarter ended June 30, mainly due to mounting bad loans. The city-headquartered lender had reported a net loss of Rs 30.28 crore during the same quarter a year ago. Sequentially, it had registered a net loss of Rs 236.30 crore in the fourth quarter last fiscal.

The total income of the bank also fell to Rs 1,954.39 crore in April-June, as against Rs 2,237.91 crore in same period of 2019-20, the bank said in a regulatory filing. Interest income declined to Rs 1,800.02 crore from Rs 2,070.94 crore.

The bank's gross non-performing assets (NPAs), as a percentage of gross advances as on June 30, 2020 swelled to 14.34 per cent as against 12.88 per cent a year ago. But in value terms, the gross NPAs or bad loans were down at Rs 8,848.06 crore as against Rs 8,885.86 crore.

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Net NPAs, however, were down at 7.57 per cent (Rs 4,326.41 crore), as against 7.77 per cent (Rs 5,062.36 crore).

The bank's provisions for bad loans and contingencies for June quarter of FY21 were raised to Rs 382.56 crore from Rs 334.53 crore.

However, the provision made only for bad loans stood at Rs 330.80 crore in the first quarter this fiscal, as against Rs 211.13 crore in the year-ago period.

"Bank has reported in one loan account in the road projects under borrowal fraud category to RBI during quarter four of financial year 2019-20 involving amount of Rs 38.19 crore outstanding as on December 31, 2019. The account was already under NPA category since October 31, 2016 and provision of Rs 15.27 crore was held till December 2019," it said.

The bank said it has made a provision of Rs 26.73 crore till June 30, 2020 against this account, and balance of Rs 11.46 crore has been deferred to be provided in next the two quarters of 2020-21.

With regard to Delhi Airport Metro Express Pvt Ltd (DAMEPL) account, it said in terms of the Supreme Court order and RBI guidelines, the bank has kept DAMEPL as standard account.

Following the order, the bank has not treated an amount of Rs 147.07 crore as NPA, but made the necessary provisions of Rs 36.77 crore towards the same.

The bank's provision coverage ratio and liquidity coverage ratio as on June 30, 2020 stood at 69.20 per cent and 220.80 per cent, respectively.

On COVID-19 related moratorium provisions, the bank has made provision of Rs 100 crore as per the RBI guidelines, which is more than minimum, it said.
PSB shares closed flat at Rs 13.32 apiece on the BSE.