A meeting of the Board of Directors of National Bank of Pakistan was held on Thursday to approve the financial statements of the bank for the three-month period ended on March 31, 2020.

Total income of the Bank amounted to PKR 24.87 billion which is 4.8% higher than PKR 23.73 billion earned during the corresponding three-month period last year. For this period, net interest income closed at PKR 16.57 billion, whereas the non-mark-up / interest income closed at PKR 8.30 billion, up by 7.2% and 0.4% respectively.

The Bank's profit before provisions and write-off amounted to PKR 11.06 billion, being 0.7% higher than PKR 10.98 billion for the similar period last year. The after-tax profit for the period under review closed at PKR 4.12 billion, lower by 1.5% as against PKR 4.18 billion earned during the corresponding period of 2019. Drop in after-tax profit is attributed to higher provision charge and some increase in operating expenses.

Given the challenging economic environment, non-performing loans 'NPLs' of the Bank increased by PKR 7.91 billion or 5.3% during the quarter. NPLs are adequately provided for as per the applicable regulatory requirements. The Bank continues to manage capital efficiently through conservative portfolio growth, cautious growth in advances and enhanced credit monitoring. With Common Equity Tier 1 (CET-1) ratio at 12.84% (Dec' 19: 12.11%) and total Capital Adequacy Ratio (CAR) at 16.73% as of March 31, 2020, the Bank is compliant with the regulatory requirements.

As of March 31, 2020 total assets of the Bank amounted to PKR 2,963.66 billion which is 5.1% lower than PKR 3,124.39 billion as at December 31, 2019. Strength of the Bank's balance sheet is driven by its wide market outreach and branch banking network where the focus remains on low-cost deposit mobilization. The Bank's share in total industry assets, advances and deposits is around 14.2%, 12.2% and 13.8% respectively.

Going forward, the Bank's business will focus around innovatively addressing development finance needs through reaching and supporting underserved sectors including SME, Microfinance, Agriculture Finance and finance for Micro-Housing on a priority basis. Given the slow growth of brick and mortar relative to digital channels, we are realigning ourselves with emerging e-banking realities with accelerated attention to Digital Banking solutions.-PR