LAHORE: A meeting of the Board of Directors of The Bank of Punjab was held on Friday to consider and approve the un-audited financial statements for the 1st nine months of year ended on September 30, 2022.

The Board reviewed bank’s financial performance and expressed its satisfaction over results achieved during first nine months of year 2022. Despite very challenging economic conditions and tough operating environment, the bank has shown improvement in all facets of operations.

Bank’s total assets as at September 30, 2022 improved to Rs 1,309.5 billion as against Rs 1,197.0 billion as of December 31, 2021. The deposits of the bank also improved to Rs 1,040.5 billion as against Rs 1,003.0 billion as on December 31, 2021.

Investments and gross advances were recorded at Rs 576.2 billion and Rs 598.4 billion, respectively. Equity improved to Rs 64.4 billion and Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) stood at 14.14 percent against regulatory requirement of 11.50 percent. Whereas, Leverage Ratio stood at 3.89 percent as against requirement of 3.00 percent.

During nine months of the year, the bank posted before tax profit of Rs 12.45 billion as against Rs 12.36 billion earned during 1st nine months of 2021. Bank’s Net Interest Margin (NIM) improved to Rs 22.88 billion as against Rs 21.91 billion during 1st nine months of 2021.

Similarly, non-Markup/ interest income (excluding gains on securities) increased to Rs 7.19 billion as against Rs 4.42 billion during 1st nine months of 2021 showing an increase of 63 percent. Profit after tax remained at Rs 7.60 billion, after absorbing increase in effective taxability by 10 percent for tax year 2023, as against Rs 8.72 billion during first nine months of 2021. Similarly, earnings per share (EPS) remained at Rs 2.55 per share as against Rs 2.93 per share for 1stnine months of 2021.

The bank has been assigned long term entity rating of “AA+” by M/s PACRA with short term rating being at the highest rank of “A1+”. The Bank currently has a network of 722 online branches (including 132 Taqwa Islamic Banking Branches and 16 sub-branches).

Further, the bank has a network of 682 ATMs providing 24/7 banking services to the customers. Besides that, bank is also offering credit card, branchless banking, mobile banking, internet banking and cash management services to its clients.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022