Non-food bank credit growth of scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) was lower at 6 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) in November 2020 vis-a-vis 7.2 per cent in November 2019.
However, the November 2020 credit growth figure was an improvement over the preceding month’s 5.6 per cent growth (8.3 per cent in October 2019).
Credit growth to agriculture and allied activities accelerated to 8.5 per cent in November 2020 from 6.5 per cent in November 2019, according to the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) statement on “Sectoral Deployment of Bank Credit”. Credit to industry contracted marginally by 0.7 per cent as compared with 2.4 per cent growth in November 2019 due to contraction in credit to large industries by 1.8 per cent in November 2020 (3 per cent growth a year ago), the central bank said.
However, credit to medium industries registered a robust growth of 20.9 per cent in November 2020 vis-a-vis contraction of 2.4 per cent a year ago.
Credit growth to the services sector accelerated to 8.8 per cent (4.8 per cent) in November 2019 mainly on the back of acceleration in credit growth to ‘transport operators’ and ‘trade’ within the services sector.
Personal loans registered a growth of 10 per cent in November 2020 as compared with 16.4 per cent growth in November 2019. Within this sector, vehicle loans continued to perform well, registering an accelerated growth of 10 per cent in November 2020 vis-a-vis a growth of 4.7 per cent in November 2019.
Data on sectoral deployment of bank credit has been collected by RBI from select 33 scheduled commercial banks, accounting for about 90 per cent of the total non-food credit deployed by all scheduled commercial banks, for the month of November 2020 .