State-owned Punjab National Bank on Thursday recorded 10.8 per cent increase in its net interest income during FY13 rose at Rs14,857 crore as against Rs13,414 crore in FY12.
The net non-performing assets (NPAs) or bad loans of the bank in the fourth quarter decreased to 1.52 per cent from 2.35 per cent in the same period a year ago. In absolute terms, net NPAs decreased to Rs4,454.24 crore, from Rs7,236.51 crore.
While, gross NPAs stood 2.93 per cent in Jan-Mar (Rs8,719.63 crore) from 4.27 per cent (Rs13,465.80 crore) year ago.
"We are working to bring down further our NPAs. Credit growth has been 5.1 per cent. Had we recorded a higher credit growth, NPA percentage would have been low," PNB Chairman K R Kamath told reporters while unveiling the Q4 results of the bank.
He said that the bank is trying to manage the bad loans than the credit growth and it can further improve the NPAs unless there are more economic challenges.
Meanwhile the total income of the bank during January-March period of FY13 grew by 5.5 per cent to Rs11,554 crore over the corresponding period on account of 7.2 per cent growth in interest income, Kamath said.
Asked about the deposit and credit growth rate of the bank in the current fiscal, the Chairman said, "the RBI has stated that deposit growth (of the industry) is 14 per cent and credit growth is expected to be 15 per cent. We are already going 2 per cent above this."
The net interest margin (NIM) of the bank during 2012-13 stood at 3.52 per cent.
Giving guidance on the NIM for 2013-14, Kamath said, "time has come for me to revise my guidance for net interest margin a little downward may be to 3.35 per cent for the full year (2013-14)."
On whether the bank has any plans to pass on the benefits of 0.25 per cent repo rate cut announced by the RBI earlier this week, he said the bank is working towards reducing the cost of deposits.
"The deposit growth has been lower than the credit growth. There is a pressure on the deposit growth...So we are working on to reduce the cost of deposit. We are waiting to see whether there is a possibility to reducing deposit rates, as and when it happens, we will look at passing on the benefits to the borrowers," he said.