Punjab National Bank has reported a 57.5-per cent decline in net profit, at ₹306.36 crore during April-June quarter, mainly due to a sharp rise in bad loans. However, it has beaten analysts’ expectations. Speaking to Bloomberg TV India , MD and CEO Usha Ananthasubramanian says the NPA recovery process has been stepped up on a war footing. With good recovery, the bank can come up with better results in the coming quarters, she said. Excerpts:

What were the drivers of good numbers this time around?

One is the robust CASA (current and savings account) growth, which has helped us grow about 41.3 per cent of the deposits. And there has been a huge reduction in the cost of deposits as well. Our treasury contribution has been very good at ₹601 crore. Also, the recovery in written-off accounts has been ₹727 crore for Q1. Fee-based income has shot up. The recovery numbers have been very strong, which is pegged at ₹6,000-4,800 crore coming from cash, and about ₹1181 crore from upgradation. So different factors we worked on, has led to this kind of a turnaround.

Can you shed some light on the NPA situation? Your provisioning is going up. How does it look going ahead?

The ageing provision will always be there. The effort is to resolve them in whatever way possible. The intent is to resolve the NPAs so that we have a write-back from these provisioning.

You have formed a war room with general managers to help solve the NPA situation. Can you shed more light on this?

When we sensed that there could be a surge in NPAs, we quickly created a war room. The war room is headed by a general manager, a deputy general manager and assistant general managers who are on field in real-time with clients. They have identified accounts that are resolvable, and they work from the field; there is real-time reporting happening. This has helped us in tracking some NPAs that are difficult to crack. At the same time, there is some direct connection between the corporate office and the field teams.

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