Punjab National Bank (PNB) Alerts Customers On Closure of These Savings Accounts By 1 June

Customers of Punjab National Bank have received an important notice from the bank informing them that some savings accounts that have been non-operative and without a balance for the last 3 years will shortly be terminated. The bank has taken this step to prevent inherent risk and such accounts will be closed after 1 month from the date of publication of this notice which was issued on 6th May.

"Bank has noticed that in many accounts there is no operation by the customer from last 3 years and there is no balance in these accounts. To ensure that these accounts are not misused, Bank has decided to close such accounts to prevent the inherent risk," Punjab National Bank said via a post shared on X.

"Therefore, Notice is hereby given to all such account holders, who have not operated their account for more than 3 years as on 30.04.2024 and having zero balance or no balance in their account, that these accounts will be closed after one month from the date of publication of this notice without any further notice, unless the account is activated by submitting the KYC documents in respective branch," the bank further added.

"Please note that Accounts linked to DEMAT accounts, Lockers, having active standing instruction, student accounts with customer age below 25 years, account of minors, accounts opened for specific purpose like PMJJBY/PMSBY/SSY/APY, DBT and accounts frozen by order of Court, Income Tax Department or any other statutory authorities shall not be closed under this process," the PSU lender stated.

On May 9, 2024, PNB released the financial results for the quarter and year that ended on March 31, 2024. From Rs 1,159 Crore in Q4 FY'23 and Rs 2,223 Cr in Q3 FY'24 to Rs 3,010 Cr in Q4 FY'24, net profit climbed 159.8% year on year and 35.4% quarter on quarter. In comparison to the Rs 2,507 crore reported in FY'23, the net profit for FY'24 climbed to Rs 8,245 crore, indicating a strong rise of 228.8%. From Rs 6,331 Cr in Q3 FY'24 and Rs 5,866 Cr in Q4 FY'23 to Rs 6,416 Cr in Q4 FY'24, the bank's operating profit climbed by 9.4% year on year. Operating profit increased from Rs 22529 Crore in FY'23 to Rs 24,931 Crore in FY'24, a 10.7% growth.

Net Interest Income (NII) climbed 9.1% YoY to Rs 10,363 Cr in Q4 FY'24 from Rs 10,293 Cr in Q3 FY'24 and Rs 9,499 Cr in Q4 FY'23. NII jumped from Rs 34,492 crore in FY'23 to Rs 40,083 crore in FY'24, a 16.2% growth. PNB's total income for the fourth quarter of FY'24 was recorded at Rs 32,361 crore and Rs 1,20,285 crore in entire year FY24, representing a YoY growth of 18.7% and 23.6%, respectively. The bank's total interest income for the same period was recorded at Rs 28,113 crore and Rs 1,06,902 crore, representing a YoY growth of 17.9% and 25.6%, respectively.

From 0.58% in Q3 FY'24 and 0.32% in Q4 FY'23, PNB's Return on Assets (RoA) climbed to 0.77% in Q4 FY'24. The bank said that its Return on Equity (RoE) increased to 16.48% in Q4 FY'24 from 12.45% in Q3 FY'24 and 7.11% in Q4 FY'23. RoA rose Y-o-Y by 36 bps to 0.54% in FY'24 vs 0.18% recorded in FY'23. RoE jumped from 3.94% in FY'23 to 11.66% in FY'24, a 772 bps improvement. According to the bank, from 8.74% as of March 23 to 5.73% as of March 24, its GNPA ratio climbed by 301 basis points year on year. NNPA ratio, on the other hand, grew by 199 basis points, from 2.72% to 0.73%.

The Board of Directors have recommended a dividend of Rs 1.50 per equity share (75%) for the year ended March 31, 2024 subject to the approval of shareholders.