PNB chairman S. C. Gupta (left) and general manager V. P. Chowdhury in Calcutta on Saturday. Picture by Kishor Roy Chowdhury

Calcutta, July 9: Punjab National Bank is in talks with a mid-sized bank in Bangladesh for acquisition.

“The talks are at an initial stage. If it makes business sense, we will look into the takeover. It is too early to comment whether we will acquire the entire bank or pick up a stake in the bank,” S.C. Gupta, chairman and managing director of Punjab National Bank (PNB), told reporters here today.

At present, the public sector bank holds a 20 per cent stake in Everest Bank of Nepal. The bank in Nepal is the only overseas bank where the Indian bank has a holding.

PNB, however, has a branch at Kabul in Afganistan and four representative offices in the UK, China, Kazakhstan and Dubai.

“The bank’s board has approved the proposals of setting up offices in Singapore, Hong Kong and Canada. Subsequently, we have approached the Reserve Bank of India for its approval,” Gupta added.

The bank started its international business 15 months ago and the same is yet to generate substantial returns.

PNB has set a target of Rs 1,93,000-crore business in the current financial year against Rs 1,67,000 crore in 2004-05. For the last fiscal, the bank recorded a net profit of Rs 1410 crore.

Its gross non-performing assets (NPAs) during the year ended March 31 stood at 5.96 per cent and the net NPA at 0.20 per cent.

“Our aim is to bring down the gross NPA to 4.5 per cent in the current financial year. The slippage is less than recovery and, therefore, we are in a better position in the current fiscal,” Gupta said. The total recovery of the bank in 2004-05 was to the tune of Rs 1,600 crore.

PNB has also set up a joint venture ? PNB-Principal Insurance Advisory Company ? and has started selling life and non-life insurance products from April 18.

At present, 1188 branches of the bank are connected to the core banking solutions (CBS) network.

The bank expects to bring 2,000 branches under CBS by March 2006.