Punjab National Bank (PNB), the country’s second largest bank following merger of Oriental bank of Commerce and Union Bank of India, expects to recover about ₹16,000 crore by March 31, 2021, including ₹ 8,000 crore through the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) under IBC cases.
CHSS Mallikarjuna Rao, Managing Director and CEO of PNB, said “following the merger and integration of the two banks with PNB, we have become the second largest bank in the country with a network of about 11,000 branches. We have good presence in the North, North East and Central zones of the country and are now looking to expand in the West and South part.”
“We are now working under the PNB 2.0 agenda and expect to consolidate out position as a leading banker riding out through the current phase of uncertainty due to the Covid pandemic. As a Public Sector Bank we expect to play a critical role,” he said.
“The Government and the RBI have provided considerable focus on liquidity and support to various sectors of the economy including the MSMEs with the ₹ 20-lakh-crore Atmanirbhar Bharat package. The rural economy has recovered faster than the country’s urban economy,” he explained.
In tune with this focus, PNB has launched Gram Sampark Abhyan wherein 526 villages across 446 districts were covered. “We plan to cover 25,000 villages across the country by December 2020 under this initiative,” Rao said.
NPA recovery
Referring to the integration of two other banks with PNB, he said “thus far the business and human integration has been completed and we expect to complete the tech integration by March 2021, including tech upgradation which will enable us to play a much larger role in the digital services.”
“The Bank is on a growth path having posted a profit of ₹308 crore and we hope to continue this during the rest of the financial year in spite of the ongoing disruption in the economy. Of the ₹ 4 lakh crore which was under the IBC resolution mode for the banking sector, thus far ₹ 1,96,000 crore has been recovered. And for PNB, we expect to recover about ₹ 16,000 crore, including ₹ 8,000 crore under the NCLT resolution.”
“Under the PNB fold we have about ₹ 93,000 crore dues from about 652 accounts. We believe, we have about 93 per cent of this amount well secured. We do not see difficulty in recovering these dues,” he said.
Branch relocation
Asked if the bank would consider closing some of the branches, as three banks have been integrated and there could be some overlap, he said “we will not close any branch because it is closer to another one. Instead, we will use the RBI license and relocate in some nearby location.”
The total business of the Bank is pegged at ₹ 18 lakh crore, post amalgamation, consisting of deposits of ₹10.75 lakh crore and advances of ₹ 7.22 lakh crore.