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Punjab National Bank (PNB), India’s one of the largest public sector bank, has set an ambitious goal to recover ₹16,000 crore in the current financial year (FY25). The bank is also working hard to keep new bad loans—known as slippages—below 1%, in order to maintain its profitability.
In the last financial year, PNB recovered ₹14,336 crore in total. Out of this, ₹4,733 crore was recovered in just the fourth quarter. The overall slippage ratio for the year stood at 0.73%, which is considered healthy by banking standards.
According to Ashok Chandra, Managing Director and CEO of PNB, the main priorities for FY25 will be to increase recoveries and prevent new loan defaults. “We are targeting total recoveries of ₹16,000 crore this year, compared to ₹14,000 crore recovered last year,” he told PTI in an interview.
The bank expects that each quarter, slippages will be between ₹1,500 crore and ₹1,700 crore. To support recoveries, PNB will focus on accounts that were written off technically.
₹6,000 Crore Recovery Expected from Written-Off Accounts
PNB has a special category of accounts called technical write-offs, where the loans are fully provided for but not yet closed. The bank’s technical write-off portfolio currently stands at ₹91,000 crore. PNB expects to recover at least ₹6,000 crore from this segment in FY25.
Recoveries from these accounts go straight to the bank’s profit, since the losses were already accounted for earlier. “We’ve set a minimum recovery target of ₹1,500 crore per quarter from these accounts,” Chandra said.
Although large bad loans (also called chunky assets) have mostly been cleared, the bank still sees good recovery opportunities from non-performing assets (NPAs) in the ₹25 crore to ₹50 crore range.
Boosting Retail, Agriculture and MSME Lending
To reduce risks and maintain growth, PNB is also focusing more on lending to the RAM segment—which includes Retail, Agriculture, and Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).
At the end of FY25, the bank had given out ₹6.02 lakh crore in RAM loans, which made up 56% of its total loan book. PNB plans to increase this share to 58% this year. “Expanding RAM lending will help us offset losses caused by falling interest rates in the corporate and RLLR (repo-linked lending rate) segments,” the CEO said.
Strong Financial Growth in FY25
PNB had a very successful FY25, emerging as the top performer among all 12 public sector banks in terms of profit growth. The bank’s net profit more than doubled, rising by 102% to reach ₹16,630 crore—up from ₹8,245 crore in the previous year.
In terms of overall business, PNB reported a 14% growth, taking its total business to ₹26.83 lakh crore. This makes it one of the top performers in the Indian banking sector for the year.
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