Bank credit growth eases to 16.8% in December quarter: RBI data

The growth in credit was led by bank branches in metropolitan centres (File image)

Banks' credit growth eased to 16.8 percent in the December quarter from 17.2 percent in the preceding quarter, data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)’s "Quarterly Statistics on Deposits and Credit of SCBs: December 2022" showed.

In the year-ago period, bank credit grew at 8.4 percent.

The growth in credit was led by bank branches in metropolitan centres, which account for nearly 60 percent of the total credit by scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) and recorded 17.2 percent rise on-year in lending; urban, semi-urban and rural centres also recorded double-digit credit growth, the RBI said.

The central bank collects this data from all SCBs under the basic statistical return (BSR) – 7 system1, and statistics on bank credit and deposits are being released as per geography, population group and bank group level disaggregation.

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While public sector banks increased their credit portfolio by 15.7 percent during the calendar year 2022 (4.7 percent in the year 2021); corresponding growth for private sector banks, however, remained higher at 19.1 percent (13.1 percent a year ago).

On the deposit front, aggregate deposit rose by 10.3 percent on-year in December quarter. This was led by 13.2 percent growth in term deposits; current and savings deposits recorded moderate growth of 4.6 percent and 7.3 percent, respectively.

Deposit mobilisation by public banks improved to 8.8 percent on-year growth in December quarter.

The all-India credit-deposit (C-D) ratio increased further to 75.9 percent in December 2022 (74.8 percent in the previous quarter and 71.6 percent in December 2021); it remained above 100 percent for Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana.