New Delhi: Punjab National Bank (PNB) has announced results for the three months period (Q2) ended September 30, 2007.

Besides, the quarterly results announcement, the bank has also
revealed that it is ready to open branches out of the country in Dubai,
Hong Kong and Shanghai.

The public sector lender has recorded a 6.63 percent growth in its
second quarterly net profit, which stood at Rs 538.48 crore from Rs
504.99 crore in the same period of the last fiscal.

The bank’s total income climbed 28.49 percent to Rs 3,930.89 crore,
compared to Rs 3,059.19 crore registered in the corresponding period of
the previous fiscal

For the first six months period (Apr-Sep), the bank has filed a
year-on-year growth of 10.4%. The net profit for the same was Rs 963.6
crore compared to Rs 872.5 crore in first half of 2006-07.

KC Chakrabarty, PNB chairman and managing director, said, “A large
part of bank’s lending is towards infrastructure projects. Due to
stringent guidelines, loans to number of such projects which are stuck
in public interest litigation, but credit to whom is being serviced,
have to be classified as NPAs.”

The bank’s total income for the first half of the existing fiscal
grew by 29.2 percent to Rs 7,228 crore. In the first half, the bank saw
a huge growth of 1183.8 percent in net non-performing assets.

“We have received the licence to open a branch in Hong Kong. We also
plan to upgrade our representative offices in Shanghai and Dubai to
branches,” Mr. Chakrabarty said.

The bank already owned branches in UK and Kabul and representative offices in Dubai, Shanghai and Almaty.

He also said that it was necessary to offer clients with resourceful banking services throughout the world.