Today, the Reserve Bank released its web publication entitled ‘Quarterly Basic Statistical Returns (BSR)-1: Outstanding Credit of Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCBs), March 2023’ on its Database on Indian Economy (DBIE) portal¹ (web-link: https://dbie.rbi.org.in/DBIE/dbie.rbi?site=BsrPublications). Based on granular account-level information, it presents various characteristics of bank credit, such as, occupation/activity and organisational sector of the borrower, type of account and interest rates. Data reported by 89 SCBs (excluding Regional Rural Banks) are presented for bank groups, population groups and states².

Highlights:

• Bank credit growth (y-o-y) accelerated over the last one year and stood at 15.9 per cent in March 2023 (10.7 per cent a year ago).

• All population groups maintained double digit credit growth during 2022-23; bank branches in metropolitan centres accounted for 62 per cent of total credit in March 2023.

• Personal loans segment has been driving the overall bank credit growth in the recent years: it recorded 19.7 per cent growth in March 2023 (16.5 per cent a year ago). The share of personal loans in total credit increased to 28.6 per cent in March 2023 from 21.5 per cent five years ago and 16.0 ten years ago.

• With rising economic activities, industrial credit growth (y-o-y) accelerated to 9.1 per cent in March 2023 from 4.8 per cent a year ago; demand for working capital loans also surged (18.5 per cent y-o-y growth in March 2023).

• Within credit to individuals, the share of women borrowers has been rising gradually: it stood at 22.9 per cent in March 2023 (20.6 per cent five years ago).

• Private sector banks accounted for 45 per cent of the incremental loans during 2022-23; their share in total credit rose to 39.0 per cent in March 2023 from 38.1 per cent a year ago and 30.2 per cent five years ago.

• Among states, Maharashtra maintained the highest share (28.2 per cent) in total bank credit, followed by National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi (10.9 per cent) and Tamil Nadu (9.1 per cent).

• The weighted average lending rate (WALR) on outstanding credit increased by 26 basis points (bps) during January-March 2023 and by 117 bps during April 2022-March 2023.

Ajit Prasad            
Director (Communications)

Press Release: 2023-2024/415

¹ The summary results, which were being disseminated as a part of the regular data release on ‘Quarterly Statistics on Deposits and Credit of SCBs’ {compiled from the Basic Statistical Returns (BSR) – 7 reporting}, are now being generated from the BSR-1 (credit) and BSR-2 (deposit) returns; the BSR-7 return has been discontinued after December 2022, as a part of rationalisation.

² Banking aggregates based on fortnightly Form-A Return (collected under Section 42(2) of the RBI Act, 1934) for the last reporting Friday of March 2023 were published earlier at our website (Home>Statistics>Data Release>Fortnightly>Scheduled Bank's Statement of Position in India) and aggregate level monthly data on sectoral deployment of bank credit for March 2023, reported by select major banks, were also released on the website (Home>Statistics>Data Releases>Monthly> Data on Sectoral Deployment of Bank Credit).