PNB to transfer bad loans worth Rs 20,008 cr from 62 accounts to NARCL

Business Standard | 03/11/2022 06:07 PM

Punjab National Bank (PNB) has identified bad loans worth Rs 20,008 crore from 62 accounts to be transferred to the government-backed National Asset Reconstruction Company (NARCL) for resolution in a phased manner, Atul Kumar Goel, its managing director (MD), said on Wednesday.

“We have identified nine accounts amounting to Rs 2,752 crore to be transferred to NARCL in the first phase. There will be 11 accounts in the second phase amounting to Rs 2,685 crore, and remaining in the third phase. We have already got offers from NARCL on five accounts where we have an outstanding amount of Rs 1,099 crore,” he added.

NARCL has been set up by commercial banks to aggregate and consolidates stressed assets for their subsequent resolution.

Results declared by PNB on Tuesday showed that its standalone net profit plunged 62.8 percent year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 411.3 crore during July-September. This was because provisions for non-performing assets (NPAs) went up by 32 percent to Rs 3,556 crore.

Goel said he was confident to recover Rs 3,995 crore during the current financial year from the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) cases.

The total outstanding bad loans referred to the NCLT stand at Rs 66,855 crore.

During the first half of FY23, the bank recovered Rs 1,471 crore. In FY22, it was able to recover Rs 6,321 crore of bad loans from NCLT cases.

Against a recovery target of Rs 32,000 crore from bad loans for FY23, Goel said the bank has already recovered around Rs 16,000 crore in H1.

“We are fully confident that we will achieve our target by the end of FY23,” he added.

Goel said the bank aims to bring gross non-performing assets (GNPAs) down to a single digit during the current financial year from 10.48 percent at the end of the September quarter of FY23.