<div>Punjab National Bank, India's fourth-biggest state-run lender by assets, reported on Tuesday a 49 percent drop in quarterly profit as provisions nearly doubled.</div><div> </div><div>The stock, however, jumped as much 6.7 percent as the bank's bad loan ratio fell marginally in the three months to June, compared with the previous quarter.</div><div> </div><div>Net profit fell to 7.21 billion rupees ($112.61 million) for its fiscal first quarter to June 30, from 14.05 billion rupees reported a year earlier, the New Delhi-based lender said. Analysts on average had expected a net profit of 9 billion rupees, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters.</div><div> </div><div>Gross bad loans as a percentage of total loans fell slightly to 6.47 percent in the June quarter from 6.55 percent in the previous three months, but were higher than 5.48 percent a year earlier. Provisions, including for bad loans, nearly doubled from a year earlier to 18.11 billion rupees.</div>
