Punjab National Bank's profit up by 85.8 pc

New Delhi, Jan 31: State-run Punjab National Bank (PNB) reported hefty increases in its quarterly profit, helped by treasury gains and rising net interest incomes. This was disclosed by K C Chakrabarty, Chairman and Managing Director of PNB at a press conference here on Friday, Jan 30.

The Bank registered an 85.8 percent increase in the net profit at 10.06 billion rupees for the quarter ended December 31, 2008, against 5.41 billion dollars for the same period, a year ago.
PNB's loan book grew 39.4 percent to 1.42 trillion rupees during the quarter.

Consequently, treasury gains at the PNB went up to 3.41 billion rupees in the quarter, from 710 million rupees a year ago. As for the buoyancy by bank's performance, Chakrabarty mentioned that the yield on advances was extraordinary.

"The yield on advances on 9 month basis is already 11.51 percent. This is even after reducing the Prime Lending Rate (PLR) from 14 percent to 12 percent," said Chakrabarty. Punjab National Bank, which is India''s second largest public sector bank would reduce key lending rates from February 1.

"PLR will be cut by 50 basis points (bps), home loan will be reduce by 25 to 50 percent in different categories, loan on auto vehicles will be cut by 25 to 50 percent and home loan will be reduce by 50 basis points and we are working on it," he said.

ANI