State-owned lender Punjab & Sind Bank intends to achieve a milestone total business of ₹3 lakh crore by end of the ongoing financial year helped by loan growth.

"We have achieved total business of ₹2.63 lakh crore in FY26, registering a growth of 15 per cent and hope to cross ₹3 lakh crore during the current financial year," Punjab & Sind Bank MD and CEO Swarup Kumar Saha told PTI.

The bank is expecting a credit growth of 16-18 per cent and deposit expansion of 13-14 per cent in the ongoing financial year, he said.

With this kind of credit and deposit growth, he said, the bank can surpass ₹3 lakh crore business mix, which is total of advances and deposits.

To meet the credit expansion, the bank is also planning to raise resources from both equity and debt.

Punjab & Sind Bank is eying to mobilise up to ₹3,000 crore via share sale on a private placement basis in a bid to meet the minimum public shareholding (MPS) norms of market regulator Sebi.

As per Sebi norms, listed entities are required to have at least 25 per cent public shareholding.

Currently, the Government of India holds a 93.85 per cent stake in Punjab & Sind Bank.

"We have got board approval for raising up to ₹3,000 crore from Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP) or other means (in FY27). We are in discussion with merchant bankers. We will soon start roadshows to engage with investors for proposed stake dilution," Saha said.

However, he said, timing and exact quantum would depend on market conditions, which are not very conducive at present.

Besides, he said, the board has also approved ₹3,000 crore infrastructure bonds and ₹2,000 crore from Tier I and Tier II bonds to fund credit growth.

The bank had done a maiden issuance of infrastructure bonds in December 2024.

Saha said the bank has fully deployed the funds raised from its first infra bonds.

Domestic investors have shown a lot of interest in such bond issuance by banks, and many lenders have exercised this option for raising resources in the recent past.

The advantage of infrastructure bonds is that they are exempt from regulatory reserve requirements such as the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) and Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR). So, infrastructure bond proceeds can be fully deployed for lending activities.

Banks have been preferring infrastructure bonds over AT-1 and Tier-2 bonds, as they are better priced.

Published on May 3, 2026