Public sector bank’s cumulative profit surpassed Rs 1 lakh crore in the fiscal year ending March 2023, with market leader State Bank of India (SBI) accounting for nearly half of total revenues.
According to an analysis of their financial statistics, the Public Sector Banks (PSBs) have gone a long way from a total net loss of Rs 85,390 crore in 2017-18 to a profit of Rs 1,04,649 crore in 2022-23.
In the fiscal year ending March 2023, the cumulative profit of public sector banks reached Rs 1 lakh crore, with market leader State Bank of India (SBI) accounting for nearly half of all revenues.
The Public Sector Banks (PSBs) have come a long way from a total net loss of Rs 85,390 crore in 2017-18 to a profit of Rs 1,04,649 crore in 2022-23, according to an examination of their financial figures.
In absolute terms, however, SBI declared an annual profit of Rs 50,232 crore in 2022-23, a 59 per cent rise over the previous fiscal year.
Other PSBs, with the exception of the Punjab National Bank (PNB), have posted impressive annual gains in profit after tax.
PNB’s annual net profit fell by 27 per cent, from Rs 3,457 crore in 2021-22 to Rs 2,507 crore in the fiscal year ending March 2023.
Bank of Baroda (Rs 14,110 crore) and Canara Bank (Rs 10,604 crore) are the PSBs that declared annual profits in excess of Rs 10,000 crore.
Other lenders such as Punjab and Sind Bank reported annual profit growth of 26 per cent (Rs 1,313 crore), Central Bank of India 51 per cent (Rs 1,582 crore), Indian Overseas Bank 23 per cent (Rs 2,099 crore), Bank of India 18 per cent (Rs 4,023 crore), Indian Bank 34 per cent (Rs 5,282 crore), and Union Bank of India 61 per cent (Rs 8,433 crore).
PSB is a success tale that went from record losses to record profits. The doom-to-bloom story of the public sector banking industry may be ascribed to initiatives and a flurry of reforms implemented by the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, former Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, and Financial Services Secretary Rajiv Kumar and his successors.
The government has launched a comprehensive 4R plan, which includes transparently recognising NPAs, resolving and recovering NPAs, recapitalising PSBs, and financial ecosystem reforms.
As part of the policy, the government invested an unprecedented Rs 3,10,997 crore in PSB recapitalisation over the last five fiscal years (2016-17 to 2020-21). The recapitalisation programme gave much-needed assistance to the PSBs and saved them from defaulting. The government’s reforms over the last eight years focused credit discipline, prudent lending, and enhanced governance. Furthermore, there was technological adoption, bank amalgamation, and general banker confidence was maintained.
The profit of the PSBs soared by more than 95 per cent to Rs 34,483 crore in the most recent March quarter, or the fourth quarter of 2022-23. In the previous year, the figure was Rs 17,666 crore.
