Today, the Reserve Bank released its web publication entitled ‘Quarterly Basic Statistical Returns (BSR)-1: Outstanding Credit of Scheduled Commercial Banks (SCBs) - December 2023’ on its ‘Database on Indian Economy’ portal¹ (https://dbie.rbi.org.in Homepage > Publications). It captures various characteristics of bank credit such as occupation/activity and organisational sector of the borrower, type of account and interest rates based on account-level reporting². Data reported by 90 SCBs (excluding Regional Rural Banks) are presented for bank groups, population groups³ and states⁴.

Highlights:

• Bank credit growth stood at 16.1 per cent, net of merger, (y-o-y) in December 2023 (20.3 per cent, including the merger impact).
• Lending by rural and semi-urban bank branches has been in line with overall credit growth; their combined share in total credit stood at 21.4 per cent in December 2023.
• Credit to industry increased by 9.5 per cent (y-o-y) in December 2023, which was comparable to the growth a year ago.
• Personal loans continued to expand and its share in total credit stood at 30.9 per cent in December 2023 (28.6 per cent in previous year).
• The share of women borrowers in total credit is relatively low (10.7 per cent in December 2023) but it is growing at robust pace, and has outpaced the growth in loans to male borrowers over the last seven quarters.

Ajit Prasad              
Director (Communications)

Press Release: 2023-2024/1971