Punjab & Sind Bank narrows net loss at Rs 401 cr in September quarter

Punjab & Sind Bank on Thursday reported narrowing of its net loss at Rs 401.27 crore in the second quarter ended September 2020.

The state-owned lender had posted a net loss of Rs 468.73 crore in the same period a year ago. The loss, however, widened sequentially from Rs 116.89 crore in the June quarter of FY2020-21.

Total income of the bank fell to Rs 1,999.19 crore in July-September of 2020-21 from Rs 2,222.57 crore in the same period of 2019-20, Punjab & Sind Bank said in a regulatory filing.

Bank's provisioning for bad loans and contingencies were down at Rs 863.82 crore for Q2FY21 from Rs 972.62 crore in Q2FY20.

Of this, bad loans or NPAs provisioning were Rs 845 crore, as against Rs 949.36 crore a year earlier.

Asset quality impaired with gross non-performing assets (NPAs) rising to 14.06 per cent by end of September 2020 from 13.64 per cent at end of September 2019.

Value wise, the gross NPAs stood at Rs 8,673.16 crore, lower than Rs 9,218.22 crore.

Net NPAs, however, improved at 5.87 per cent (Rs 3,306.52 crore) from 7.07 per cent (Rs 4,443.54 crore).

The bank said it has reported three loan accounts under borrowal fraud category to RBI during the quarter involving Rs 916.73 crore as outstanding by end of September 2020.

"The accounts were already under NPA category and provision of Rs 272.64 crore was held till June 30, 2020. A further provision of Rs 161.02 crore has been made during Q2FY21 and availed deferment of balance provision of Rs 483.06 crore," it said.

This balance is to be provided in next three quarters of 2020-21 and 2021-22, it added.

The bank also said it will raise up to Rs 6,000 crore by way of Follow on Public Offer (FPO) or rights issue/Qualified Institutional Placement(s) preferential issue or any other mode or a combination in one or more tranches within a period of 12 months.

This includes the previous approval to raise an amount of Rs 500 crore by way of QIP.

The board of directors also approved to increase the authorised equity share capital of the bank from Rs 3,000 crore to Rs 10,000 crore, it said.

Its shares closed 1.45 per cent down at Rs 11.55 apiece on BSE.