Shares of Punjab & Sind Bank on Monday jumped nearly 7 per cent as the company turned profitable in the fourth quarter of FY21 after eight consecutive quarters of losses.

The stock rallied 6.60 per cent to ₹21.80 on the BSE.

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On the NSE, it jumped 6 per cent to ₹21.80.

The state-run bank turned profitable in the fourth quarter of FY21 after eight consecutive quarters of losses, posting a profit after tax of ₹161 crore on the back of improvement in recoveries and decline in bad loans.

The lender had registered a net loss of ₹236.3 crore in the year-ago period.

However, for the full year, its loss widened to ₹2,732.9 crore against ₹990.8 crore in FY20.

“The profitability is due to our focussed monitoring and also on account of recoveries. Though it has been challenging times, we were able to make a reasonable amount of recoveries.

“We were also able to arrest slippages to a great extent. This has helped in bringing down the credit costs, which enabled us to register a profit,” the bank’s Managing Director and CEO S Krishnan told reporters on Saturday.

The bank’s asset quality showed improvement, with gross non-performing assets (GNPAs) declining to 13.76 per cent from 14.18 per cent.

Net NPA also halved to 4.04 per cent during the reporting quarter from 8.03 per cent in the corresponding period of the previous year.

As a result, the provisions and contingencies fell to ₹4.38 crore in the reporting quarter from ₹817.83 crore in the year-ago period.

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