Punjab National Bank (PNB), which is counted among the country’s largest state-run banks, has earned more than Rs 645 crore from ATM transaction charges from customers in the last financial year 2021-22. The bank has given this information on an application made under Right to Information (RTI). The bank said that it has earned Rs 645.67 crore as ATM transaction charges from customers in the last financial year. Apart from this, the country’s second largest public sector bank has also collected a total fine of Rs 239.09 crore from customers not maintaining minimum balance in accounts on quarterly/monthly basis.
The bank has given this information on the application of RTI applicant Manoj Gaur of Madhya Pradesh. In the financial year 2020-21, the bank had earned Rs 170 crore as fines from customers who did not maintain minimum balance in the accounts. This amount was raised from 85,18,953 accounts during the financial year 2021-22. Also, to a question about the number of accounts with zero balance, Punjab National Bank said that there were a total of 6,76,37,918 such accounts as on March 31, 2022.
As per the data for the last four financial years from the year 2018-19 to 2021-22, it was found that there has been a steady increase in the zero balance accounts in PNB in these years. As on March 31, 2019, PNB had 2,82,03,379 zero balance accounts, which increased to 3,05,83,184 at the end of March,2020 and to 5,94,96,731 as of March 31, 2021.
Let us tell you, in the March quarter this year, the profit of PNB has fallen by 65% to Rs 202 crore. The bank had made a profit of Rs 586 crore in the same period last year. At the same time, on an annual basis, the bank has made a profit of Rs 3456 crore in the financial year 2021-22, while in the last financial year the bank had a profit of Rs 2021 crore.
The bank’s asset quality also showed improvement in the March quarter results. During this period, the bank’s non-performing assets (GNPA) came down to 11.78 per cent from 14.12 per cent last year. At the same time, bank net non-performing assets (NPA) declined from 5.73 to 4.8 per cent.
