Punjab National Bank (PNB) Q3 earnings: Net profit rises 13%, NII advances 5%; asset quality improves

Punjab National Bank, the country's leading public sector lender, on Monday, January 19, reported net profit of ₹5,100 crore in the third quarter of current financial year (Q3FY26), marking an increase of 13% from ₹4,508 crore in the same period last year.

The bank's net interest income or the difference between interest earned on loans and expended on deposits rose 5% to ₹11,032 crore compared with ₹10,533 crore in the year-ago period.

The Delhi-based lender's asset quality showed an improvement during the quarter as its gross non-performing assets (NPAs), as a percentage of total advances, eased to 3.19% from 4.09% in the corresponding period last year. On a sequential basis the gross NPAs came down from 3.45%.

Its net NPAs eased to 0.32% as against 0.41% in the year-ago period.

In absolute terms, gross NPAs stood at ₹39,314 crore compared with ₹45,414 crore in the corresponding period of the last financial year.

PNB's provisioning for bad loans surged sharply in October-December period to ₹1,341 crore compared with ₹318 crore in the same period last year which led to sharp fall in the PNB's stock.

PNB shares dropped as much as 5.37% to hit an intraday low of ₹125 after its earnings announcement, underperforming the NIFTY Bank index which was down 0.36%.

During the quarter, bank's global business rose 9.5% year-on-year to ₹28.91 crore compared with ₹26.39 lakh crore.

PNB's core retail advances increased by 18.9% Y-o-Y with housing loan portfolio rising by 14.5% Y-o-Y to ₹1,27,364 crore and vehicle loan posted a growth of 35.7% Y-o-Y to reach ₹33,458 crore.

Agriculture Advances grew by 9.8% on Y-o-Y basis to ₹1,91,629 crore and MSME advances increased Y-o-Y by 18.1% to ₹1,88,209 crore, the Delhi-based lender said.

As on December 31, 2025, the bank had 10,261 domestic branches and two international branches. Out of total number of branches, bank had 63.3% branches in rural & semi-urban areas.

As of 2:29 pm, PNB shares traded 3.88% lower at ₹127.22 and it was among the top losers in the NIFTY PSU Bank index.