Punjab National Bank, a state-owned lender, posted a 12.8% rise in net profit for the second quarter compared with the same period a year earlier, with stronger core income and a notable reduction in credit-loss provisions driving the outcome, though an uptick in fresh loan slippages tempered the overall picture. Net profit at the government-owned bank reached ₹5,532 crore during the July-to-September quarter, up from ₹4,904 crore recorded in the same three-month window a year earlier. Climbing 10.8% against the prior year's ₹10,469 crore, the bank's Net Interest Income — a measure of what it earns on lending after subtracting what it pays out on deposits — reached ₹11,601 crore in the reported period. Lending profitability, as tracked through the Net Interest Margin, ticked up eight basis points between quarters — moving from 2.50% at the close of the June period to 2.58% in the latest reading. Quarter-on-quarter comparisons placed operating profit at ₹7,532 crore for the period under review, a 4.2% advance over the ₹7,227 crore posted twelve months earlier. Over the course of the quarter, the proportion of non-performing loans moved lower on a period-on-period basis, pointing to a healthier overall picture for the lender's credit portfolio. Measured against the 2.78% posted at the close of the preceding June quarter, the Gross Non-Performing Assets ratio edged down by 23 basis points to settle at 2.55% by the end of September. Edging down by three basis points relative to the preceding quarter, the Net Non-Performing Assets ratio settled at 0.25%, having stood at 0.28% in the period before. Loan-loss allocations contracted to ₹97 crore in the most recent second quarter, a figure representing just a fraction of the ₹643 crore set aside during the same period a year earlier — a year-on-year reduction of 84.9%. Compared with Q1's ₹541 crore, the quarter-on-quarter provisioning figure contracted by 82.1%. Loan books showed a narrowing in the share of troubled debt overall, yet the volume of newly classified problem assets ticked upward. Across the July-to-September window, newly classified bad loans totalled ₹2,233 crore, a figure that stood 11.9% above the ₹1,996 crore recorded in the preceding quarter and 23.2% above the ₹1,812 crore posted during the same three-month stretch a year earlier.
