Public sector lender Punjab & Sind Bank on Saturday reported a 25 per cent decline in net profit to Rs 153 crore for the June 2023 quarter, partly due to the provision of wage revision and fresh slippages. The lender had reported a net profit of Rs 205 crore in the April-June quarter of 2022-23.

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The total income increased to Rs 2,494 crore in the first quarter of 2023-24 against Rs 1,915 crore a year ago, as per a regulatory filing.

During the quarter, the bank earned an interest income of Rs 2,316 crore compared to Rs 1,800 crore in the year-ago period.

Explaining the reason for the decline in profit, Punjab & Sind Bank managing director Swarup Kumar Saha said the bank has made a Rs 57 crore provision towards the wage revision under negotiation and Rs 450 crore in fresh slippages, including a mid-corporate of Rs 92 crore in the quarter.

The bank has made a provision of Rs 42 crore for that particular account, which is in the logistics business, he said.

On the asset quality side, there was an improvement in gross non-performing assets (NPA) of the total advances, easing to 6.80 per cent at June-end from 11.34 per cent a year earlier.

Similarly, net NPAs declined to 1.95 per cent in June 2023 against 2.56 per cent.

The bank aims to bring down gross NPA to 6 per cent while Net NPA below 1.5 per cent during the year, Saha said.

The provision coverage ratio stood at 88.58 per cent against 88.10 in the same quarter of the last fiscal.

Its capital adequacy ratio increased to 17.19 per cent from 16.79 per cent at the end of June 2022.

With regard to recovery, its managing director Swarup Kumar Saha said the bank expects a recovery of Rs 1,500 crore in the current financial year.

During the quarter, the bank recovered Rs 345 crore from non-performing assets.

With regard to business growth, Saha said credit growth is expected to be 13-14 per cent, while deposit mobilisation would witness a growth of 8-10 per cent during the current fiscal.

The bank's net interest margin (NIM) in the quarter increased to 2.63 per cent from 2.53 per cent a year ago.

The outlook on NIM for the entire financial year is 2.9 per cent, Saha added.